Nonetheless Shelley Rivers and Markus Sodergren are both pleasing singers and hearing them work toether in a low ceilinged confined space without radio mics is more like opera than a musical but none the worse for that. Both are good at catching mood and conveying the joys, disappointments, yearning and regrets involved in any relationship. Rivers, whose intonation is almost always accurate, brings sweetness, along with a wide dynamic range and sustained full belt when she needs it. Sodergren, also catching many nuanced moods, brings a rather touching vulnerability to the role.  And I admired their rendering of Saturday Night which is effectively a fugue and pretty tricky.

All this is done, rather impressively, without visual cues. Aaron Clingham playing piano mellifluously is tucked away at the side where I suspect he can’t be seen by either singer.

We’re in the newly opened Stage Door Theatre above The Prince of Wales pub in Drury Lane which is an attractive, quite roomy space with the audience (who can also dine) sitting at tables. David Shields’s set occupies one end of the room and presents a domestic apartment with sofa, plants, fridge, shelves and the like. The intimacy of that audience proximity works quite well.

Director Robert McWhir makes sure that every inch of the small playing space is imaginatively used with plenty of movement and different moods evoked in corners and with props such as wine bottles.

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  Photos: Peter Davies

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First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/marry-me-a-little-2/