BWW Reviews: FRANCES RUFFELLE - PARIS ORIGINAL, St James Theatre Studio, October 1 2014

All the Parisian cliches are there: the streetwalkers; the romance; the loneliness and many more. Mais, c'est Paris mon chere, n'est-ce-pas? Frances Ruffelle - Paris Original (continuing at St. James Theatre Studio until October 3) takes us to the City of Light as imagined in song - and it's not so very far from the real thing after all.

Ms Ruffelle is an engaging presence in an intimate room, affording her plenty of salacious looks at the more eligible young men in the audience, as she vamps through the opening numbers. Wisely, she veers off that path before the spectre of panto raises its head and concentrates on what she does best - singing songs of love and defiance in a powerful, smoky, sexy voice.

If the French (with a bit of franglais thrown in) can get a bit much - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing when your brain is translating the lyrics two or more beats behind the singing), there's plenty of English stuff from the shows and even a "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" - some big audio from the tiny songstress! A highlight was the mash-up of Windmills Of Your Mind with Miss Saigon's The Movie In My Mind delivered with something akin to anger - an iron fist hiding inside the velvety voice.

There are also guests introduced to allow Ms Ruffelle the opportunity to change into an outfit that had more than a touch of Last Tango In Paris about it - naughty Frances! Her daughter, Eliza Doolittle, had rather less Gauloises evident in her singing, but she still nailed a Chanson d'Amour like the star she is - yes, le musique de pop has always had plenty of fromage to go with the passion. Italian accordionist Romano Viazzani did a splendid turn with an instrument dating from 1955 and used by his father - he may be Italian, but if he'd been wearing a stripy T-shirt with a string of onions round his neck, he would have fitted the sound perfectly .

After over an hour of familiar songs and some less familiar chansons, Ms Ruffelle was relaxed enough to be joshing with the audience most of whom, like me, would have been happy to hear her go through every song of Les Mis, not just the one they cut when she was London's first Eponine - and plenty more too. But we must have Piaf and, of course, it must be "Non, je ne regrette rien", magnificently rendered in its full over-the-top gloire! It was so fine, but now it was finis.

Paris Original may be a song about ending up just like everyone else, but there's nobody quite like Ms Ruffelle, her voice effortlessly sliding from North London to Rive Gauche and back again quicker than a TGV. Bravo! And look out for an encore in New York!

To post a comment, you must register and login.