WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHERE?: Online via Leave A Light On

WHEN?: 22/1/21

SETLIST: What Baking Can Do; Rainbow; How Far I’ll Go; Someone Like You (duet with Ella Stammers); Landslide; I Can Do Better Than That; When She Loved Me; Marvin; Only Us (duet with Sam Tutty); She Used To Be Mine

Jones was performing in Waitress in her 1st West End leading lady role when Covid-19 closed theatres and so she turned to teaching.

• Read on for reasons including how Jones duets with a young student and it’s quite moving

‘I was due to be in Waitress for quite some time and instead I set up a business teaching online. I know lots of my students will be watching: ‘You have been amazing. It’s been 1 of the greatest experiences, 1 of the most privileged things I’ve done, I’ve been so lucky.’

Midway through this set she performs Someone Like You from Jekyll And Hyde with 15-year-old student Ella Stammers in an online duet and it’s quite moving. ‘She’s been my student for 6 to 8 months. She wouldn’t sing at the start and said she was a dancer.’

The penultimate song is a duet with Sam Tutty, star of the West End production of Dear Evan Hansen, and it’s a highpoint but never eclipses the pairing with Stammers which is testament to the teaching talent Jones has unearthed in lockdown.

We were perhaps a little unfair on Jones when we reviewed her in Waitress in 2019 and it’s clear the score means much to her as it bookends the setlist here.

It was Eurovision where our enthusiasm for Jones was sparked and although she doesn’t sing her entry from it here or anything from Rent which we’ve also appreciated her in, she makes for an engaging presence and her live vocal is always rich, expressive and warm.

Her parting words are charged with emotion: ‘Continuing to perform these concerts is just an amazing thing for us. Having these moments, to be able to sing for you again in lockdown which has been an extended period of bleurgh, has been so important. Hopefully the next time I see you will be in person.’

Details of future Leave A Light On events can be found on this site.

• Picture via Facebook courtesy Leave A Light On Tickets
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