Music Monday - Mismatched

This evening, Robin and I, with friends, attended the final performance of Mismatched in the Perth Fringe World Festival. The photo, taken after the show, is of me with the show’s pianist, Tommaso Pollio, who makes a reasonably average electric keyboard sound almost as good as when he (more often) plays the Fazioli grand piano at WAAPA. The final note on piano in tonight’s Maria, (more important in the score than the final sung note in my opinion), was every bit as evocative as you’d expect to hear in the Bernstein orchestration. Bravo Tommaso!

Mismatched describes itself as ‘a musical celebration of unlikely couples, starring cabaret veterans: Penny Shaw, Robert Hofmann and Tommaso Pollio’. It’s a slick and musically satisfying hour. The singing is top shelf from both singers, with just the right amount of operatic tone to please the audience. It is suggestive without being sleazy. It is middle of the road rather than edgy. The audience loved it, as did we. 

One line in the show particularly resonated with me. Penny Shaw talks of leaving a UK season of Phantom of the Opera to follow a relationship to Perth, Western Australia. She talked of being happily married here now for 20 years and asks the audience, “Who would have believed me twenty years ago, if I’d said that in 2021 there would be more work for singers in Perth, than on Broadway, the West End and the rest of the world combined?” 

Strange times indeed. 

Perth, one of the most isolated capital cities in the world (and to a large extent because of that) feels almost normal during this Fringe.

And so, we must remind ourselves again, that the rest of the world is far from normal.  As far as we can, we must work to support our fellow artists, not only here, but across the world. Otherwise, they may not be there when the pandemic ends.

We arts workers are not ‘essential workers’ but (again quoting from the show), we are where essential workers seek escape when they finish work.