Or, as Les Misérables puts it, “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise”. There was a feeling of hope and positivity in this concert. Both make seemingly light work of vocals and keys respectively, and the many cheery recollections of better times also helped to provide a much-needed boost to those of us who continue to wait patiently for theatres to reopen fully again. Lewis and Rudetsky go back a long way (at least as far back as 1989) and the camaraderie was palpable. A tune from outside musical theatre stood out for me, however – ‘We Live On Borrowed Time’, by David Friedman, seemed very apt for the uncertain era that is 2020, with lyrics like “There was a time when I was sure my future was secure” and “Yesterday is past, tomorrow seems a million miles away”. There’s an ease and calm reassurance whenever he sings, whether it’s a jazz version of ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly’ from My Fair Lady – fortunately or unfortunately with the Eliza Doolittle accent unattempted – or the famous Gershwin brothers’ tune ‘I Got Rhythm’. Then again, there’s nothing wrong with staying on topic. A negligible point, but a little more could have been said about what Lewis gets up to when he’s not on stage or preparing to audition. No surprise, then, that ‘Stars’ and ‘Music of the Night’ was in the line-up, but then so was ‘Bring Him Home’, ostensibly because much of the free-flowing conversation between Lewis and Seth Rudetsky was, perhaps expectedly, about Lewis’ stage career, with various anecdotes about auditions for shows and mishaps on stage – the sort of detail that makes a live concert of this nature worth witnessing. But I didn’t know much more about him beyond that and him being the first black actor to take on the title role in the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera. Norm Lewis is the sort of name that one hears about fairly regularly in the world of musical theatre, and London audiences may recall his stint as Inspector Javert in the West End production of Les Misérables, as well as his performance in that show’s twenty-fifth-anniversary concert at The O2 Arena.
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