Sara's Three Phantoms Charity Concert Review

Thank you very much for this review!

Having been most upset at not being able to arrange to go and see Sarah perform at Hits of The West End with the rest of the Larkabouts, I found I was lucky enough to do the next best thing which was to see her perform at the above concert in Cardiff on Sunday 28th September.


Originally I booked to see Sarah and Fran two of my favourite Nancies, I was a little disappointed when I found out I would only be seeing Sarah perform on the Sunday but not overly as I was still going to be seeing Fran on the Saturday in Bristol. So on Saturday I trekked off to Cardiff and had an interesting evening, then Sunday I was very excited to be seeing the Lark perform.


I arrived at St David’s Hall and luckily everyone else was arriving at the same time as I had no idea where I was going once I got to the door. There were loots of people all buzzing round the foyer and we were soon invited in to take our seats.


The concert got off to a great start with Pete Karrie, John Owen-Jones, and Nic Greenshields (who was replacing Ramin Karimaloo who had to pull out due to ill health); performing Music of the night together you wouldn’t have thought the evening could have got any better after that performance.


Next we had a little information from the compare for the evening Sian Lloyd and a brief fact file on the evenings performers.


Peter Karrie then came back to the stage and gave us a prologue to the song he was about to sing – Heaven on their minds from Jesus Christ Superstar which was followed by John Owen- Jones Kiss of the Spiderwoman.


Following on from these two sensational performances was Nic Greenshields with a beautiful rendition of If I can’t Love Her from Beauty and The Beast.


Sarah’s first performance was next and this was the one I had been really waiting for especially having spoken to Laur earlier in the afternoon and being told that Sarah had worried that she would not be back from Glasgow in time to perform, but right on cue to probably the biggest cheers so far of the night in a wonderful flowing dress she gave a really moving performance of Maybe This Time from Cabaret it was ten times better watching her live and to see the acting through the song and this one performance alone made me so glad I had travelled the 200 odd miles to watch the show.


Next we had Peter Karrie back with Minnie the Moocher and his insistence that the audience relay everything he sung which worked fine till about halfway through when no one was able to repeat what he’d sung but it was still fun and he got why no one sung back but his facial expression was classic.


John Owen-Jones was back again he spoke to us about being a father and the song he was about to sing then went into New Words from ‘In the beginning’ at the end of this wonderfully moving song Nic Greenshields appeared at the side of the stage and John looked at him then announced that during the afternoon there had been a change to the running order and no-one was really sure what was happening and Nic then in good humour said I’ll go again then and sidled back off the stage suitably embarrassed as John Sung Sonny Boy.


Nic then came back to the stage and John said ..”Nic you really are tall aren’t you? It could be said your Larger Than Life” no surprises then as to what Nic was to sing next from My Favourite Year.


The next performance was from The Debbie Chapman Dancers a highly energetic dance routine to the music from Ladies Choice (Hairspray), and then Peter Karrie was back with High Flying Adored from Evita, I truly sensational performance and He was joined by the other leading Lady for the night Elin Wyn Murphy who was absolutely breath taking. Elin then continued with Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.


John was back with Anthem from Chess then the final act of the first half of the show was Peter Karrie and Children from the Encore Theatre and Stage Academy singing a Joseph Medley


After the interval the show recommenced with The Three Phantoms and Elin singing ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ each phantom on stage at a different part of the song taking over the lead, they all had a way of just commanding the stage. Elin then went on to sing Wishing.


Next in store was John with Love Changes Everything followed by Nic with I’m Martin Guerre. Then it Was Sarah’s turn again with Her wonderful rendition of As Long As He Needs Me which was stunning and the dress I’m sure was the one she wore when they did the Wicked task if not the exact same it was very similar.


The programme then jumped around a bit and I think it was Peter Karrie with The Impossible Dream followed by; Nic with There is Nothing Like A Dame from south Pacific. We then had an even more incredible dance performance after a short pause that even confused the musical director John Quirk, this time the performance was to You Can’t Stop The Beat from hairspray. ‘Piece of Sky’ from a file called Yentl, John with his ambition of singing a bond theme sang ‘Thunderball’ and Peter told us the background to and sang ‘You Never Through a Party for Me’. The order here may be a bit off and I apologise but I really can’t remember the exact order at this point but.


We were then back on track with Sarah and her incredible ‘Tell Me It’s Not True’ this is by far my favourite performance from Sarah it was a real tear jerker and she got a huge round of applause for this performance.


Then Sian advised that all the cast would be in the foyer at the end of the show to give autographs and photos for anyone who wished to catch any of them which was a big relief as I had no idea how I would have got to see Sarah otherwise not knowing Cardiff at all and certainly not knowing where the cast would exit the building from.


Then the finale was started by Geraint Llyr Owen singing ‘Castle on a Cloud’ which was incredible , Elin sang I dreamed a dream John sang Bring Him Home and then John, Elin, Nic & Peter sang One More Day.


There then followed rapturous applause and Sarah and Geraint were brought onto the stage as well for a full standing ovation and three return calls to the stage in which the swapped the order so poor wee Sarah was no longer stood next to the towering giant of more than 6ft that is Nic Greenshield.


We all then made are way to the foyer and hung around for the cast. Sarah was just incredible she eventually got to the table where she was supposed to be and was signing autographs and talking to people in amongst hugging friends and family that came over. I was privileged enough to be able to pass on a message from Fran at which Sarah was delighted and explained how much she wished Fran had been there with her, she was also so happy to be able to tell everyone that she would be staring in Oliver and was really looking forward to starting rehearsals with Jodie and the rest of the cast on November 3rd. You could see she was desperate to get to her family, but her Gran came over as we were about to have a picture taken and she was so sweet even though I think she did think I was a little insane to have travelled as far as I did for the concert but for me it was worth every minute.


Sarah was a joy to meet and made my weekend complete.