The night of the much talked about Kerry Ellis & Louise Dearman concert at the Prince Edward Theatre was finally upon us- would it live up to the hype…………

Oh boy did it! One thing is indisputable – Kerry and Louise can REALLY sing. Not only that but they totally came across as 2 people that can command their audience but also as people I would love to have a drink with!!!

Photos by Darren Bell

The show opened with those spine tingling chords of Defying Gravity, mashed up with Diamonds are forever and Diamonds by Rihanna.What s start!

My favourite number had to be their mash up of ‘Anything You Can Do,’ where they both took snippets of the others leading lady songs and sang them with a firm tongue in their cheek. Seeing Kerry sing ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ whilst Louise moved her arms into Eva Peron’s famous hand pose, to be greeted with a middle finger salute was a particularly funny moment. I have to confess that the musical theatre numbers such as ‘In His Eyes,’ ‘I Know Him So Well,’ and of course ‘For Good’ were the highlights for me and judging by the audience reaction they seemed to agree.

I wasn’t such a fan of their more pop based choice but one of their pop songs stood out, that was ‘Chandelier.’ This was accompanied by 3 stunning dancers in the style of Sia’s music video, choreographed by David Leighton. This was so different to the  rest of of their numbers due to the dance element but their vocals combined with the interpretive dance element worked well.

The dialogue and the banter between Kerry and Louise flowed well and you could tell they were genuine friends with a great relationship. The segment when they touched upon their various performances during their time at Laine Theatre Arts helped give the concert a human touch and a personal backstory as well as being a great advert for the Theatre school!!

Photos by Darren Bell

Kerry and Louise were accompanied by a 6 piece band and 2 backing singers, Jennifer Tierney and Caroline Deverill. A special mention must go the the musical arranger/director, Craig Adams as the arrangements and backing vocals complimented them down to a T.

I must also praise the lighting and sound designers for the concert, Gavin McGrath and Sean Murphy as from where I was sitting it looked and sounded flawless.

This night certainty helped cement Kerry Ellis & Louise Dearman as two of of the West Ends leading ladies and with voices and personalities such as that they deserve to be performing for many years to come. Lets just hope they don’t leave it another 20 years before performing together again.

To read more about the concert you can check out my piece on the launch here and my preview piece here.