By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Saturday 23 September (matinee), opens 3 October runs through 6 January 2024 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (including a 20-minute interval) UPDATE: Transfers to the Samuel J Friedman Theatre on Broadway from 25 March 2025

We’re sitting on the end of the 3rd row for the 3rd preview at this sold out 986-capacity venue and watch a single tear slide down the cheek of Bernadette Peters during a very moving Send In The Clowns.

• Read on for reasons including how this is more fun than the BBC spectacular on which it is based

At 75 years old we thought we’d never see this 2-time Tony winner make her West End debut but she couldn’t have a better vehicle to display her considerable talents.

Composer Stephen Sondheim died in 2021 and is widely regarded as the Shakespeare of musical theatre and this concert performance of some of his most-loved songs is like a chocolate box collection of delights or week full of Christmas Days.

The emotional highpoint of this thoughfully curated show comes as the hugely talented cast joins together to sing a wonderfully moving Being Alive from Company (Gielgud Theatre) that makes you appreciate what a genius Sondheim was at writing wordy, incisive songs about grown-up relationships and feelings.

We also thought we’d never see Broadway star Lea Salonga on a West End stage again after originating the lead role of Kim in the West End production of Miss Saigon in 1989 but here she is impressing us with her versatility in performing some comically menacing numbers from Sweeney Todd and threatening to steal the show with a magical Somewhere from West Side Story.

There are so many highlights of this hugely entertaining show but we particularly loved Bonnie Langford (Anything Goes, Barbican) who sings our favourite Sondheim song (the resilience in the face of the cruel world of showbusiness that is I’m Still Here again from Follies, National Theatre) and manages to upstage the entire cast by performing the splits at the end of audition song from Follies, Broadway Baby.

This show is a musical theatre geek’s dream and we laugh with Jac Yarrow (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, London Palladium), fast developing into a young Michael Ball, as he throws himself into the arms of a rival suitor during On the Steps Of The Palace from Into The Woods (Menier Chocolate Factory).

We share the terror and excitement of Peters’ Little Red Riding Hood at Bradley Jaden’s (Treason – the musical, Cadogan Hall) fox as he bares his chest during Hello, Little Girl and laugh with Janie Dee (Follies, National Theatre) during the camp The Boy From.

We’ve also never seen Joanna Riding (Carousel, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) as good as she is during the hilarious I’m Not Getting Married Today again from Company.

It’s a great testament to Matthew Bourne’s direction that this show had a coherance and never felt like the 39-song strong greatest hits collection that it is.

It also made us come away from it thinking that we must see more Sondheim musicals in their original form which is the greatest gift of Old Friends.

We reflect on it marvelling at the talent of this extraordinary ensemble and wondering whether we will ever see the like of it again because for sheer entertainment and wow moments it feels like it’s going to be almost impossible to top.

Particularly strong is the late run of Losing My Mind from Follies into Everything’s Coming Up Roses from Gypsy (Savoy Theatre).

If you’ve seen the BBC spectacular which aired last Christmas, this has a slightly different cast used in a similar but not quite the same way but if anything we thought it was even more fun to actually be so close to the performance.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Delfont Mackintosh Tickets
• Have you seen a Sondheim show before and are you going to see Old Friends?
• Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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