Standby Please is a concert designed to showcase the talent of the future with 10 talented performers singing a range of musical theatre songs, from solos to group numbers. The show has been produced and directed by Caitlin Hargreaves and she has pulled together an immensely talented cast and a varied and enjoyable set list.

The show was well cast ensuring that that there was a diversity of performance styles and strengths in front of the audience. Holly Mae Meadows wowed the audience with a huge belt and a real warmth to her and ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’ from Funny Girls perfectly suited her. It genuinely made me keen to see her in a big belty role and someone I will be keeping an eye on.

Another performer that caught my attention was Caitlin Garcia, she had bundles of personality that meant I couldn’t take my eyes off her whenever she was on stage, that combined with an impressive voice meant I enjoyed her numbers immensely. Pash Trenar had a beautiful voice that made me think of crooners such as Michael Buble and his number ‘Can’t Take That Away From Me,’ showed this off perfectly.

Gareth Moriarty is a performer who has graduated this year and judging from their performance on stage the future looks bright for them. They brilliantly captured the humour needed in ‘Hard To Be A Bard’ from Something Rotten yet managed to do a 180 with a dark rendition of ‘I Don’t Care Much,’ capturing their versatility perfectly.

Billy Marsden had incredible likeability on stage and his rendition of ‘Do You Know What It’s Like’ quartet from Zanna Don’t along with the aforementioned Trenar as well as Georgia Jowett and Megan O’Connor was a highlight of the evening. Jowett also stood out from the crowd with an incredible rendition of ‘Woman’ from Pirate Queen and O’Connor’s numbers ‘I Didn’t Plan It,’ and ‘It Won’t Be Long Now,’ are both huge songs but O’Connor was far from phased and made them both look and sound easy.

Kurran Dhand chose two beautiful male tenor numbers, ‘Soul of A Man,’ and ‘I’m Alive,’ and showed incredible vocal ability and breath control with these choices. Alyanna Noakes and Alexandra Morton are the final 2 performers, both of whom joined Meadows with a beautiful rendition of ‘I Wish I May,’ showing off the fact that not only can they hold an audience captive in a solo number but they can blend beautifully with rich harmonies when needed.

The set list was well paced with a huge variety of songs, with everything from more traditional musical theatre such as Mack and Mabel, to popular shows such as Heathers and Waitress through to underperformed shows such as Zanna Don’t and Big Fish. Accompanying them all and making intelligent cuts to the pieces ensuring the evening was pacey yet showed off the performers to their full potential was Ben Tomalin. Transitions between numbers were kept swift and smooth, not overly complicating them but ensuring continuity.

Overall Standby Please was not only a chance to discover some performers who I know I will be seeing again very soon in some big shows but also an evening filled of musical theatre joy.

You can see what else is on at Waterloo East Theatre here.

If you like this review of Standby Please you might also like my review of Why Am I So Single?, Guys and Dolls and Back to The Future.