Last night was a shining beacon in what has been a pretty rubbish few weeks in many ways. If Jamie Parker & Friends just wanted to do gigs every week I'm pretty certain I'd be there for all of them <3 in fact we overheard Jamie's wife Deb saying she wanted a living room big enough to just be able to have people over and have gigs at home which sounds like a fab idea too.
The St James Studios are fast becoming one of my favourite places, certainly for any kind of cabaret, despite their attempts to squish more chairs in every time we've been it just feels so welcoming and everyone I've seen there has seemed comfortable and at home which always helps.
But it was just a brilliant evening all round-
seiyaharris & I went for a rose theme and had tapas & rose sangira followed by the gig with a bottle of rose wine and that was followed by salted caramel profiteroles and some rose fizz *g* sometimes evenings like that are VERY much needed and when they come with people like Jamie Parker & Sam Barnett & Maggie Service & Deb Crowe (& MD Alex Parker) then you can't really go wrong.
Jamie Parker & Friends @ St James Studio
One of the best things about this gig was how many songs they sang that were entirely new to me... of course that's also going to make writing this review pretty hard because I don't always know what they're called/who they're by!
Jamie started by singing a song all about how heartbroken he'd been when Sam wasn't at his last concert and then Sam came out and they sang this brilliant number which I also can't find the name of because it had Blue Moon in the lyrics and obviously there's a rather better number that keeps showing up :-P anyway they held hands and were disgustingly lovely around each other and later on they sang It's Better With a Man and because Jamie is a LIFE RUINER he literally sunk to his knees and clung to Sam's waist... actual worst <3 OH and they also sang This Is Not Over Yet from Parade because they both auditioned for Leo in the Donmar version a few years back apparently (I think Bertie Carvel played Leo in the end)
And whilst I'm talking about Sam Jamie also sang his filk of Pinball Wizard- Jazz Ballet Wizard which is meant to be by Scripps & about Posner and watching Sam just beam through it was rather a highlight, particularly when Jamie went slightly wrong and he hid his face in his hands <3 did make me want to ask Sam if Jamie played that song all through the tour or if he only shared it recently.
Jamie also retold the story of how when he was in a film with Tom Cruise (at which point his MUM started heckling <3) he and Debs sang a duet at the afterparty for the New York premiere and they sang You're Not Sick You're Just In Love (and they did) and then they went through a bunch of songs they SHOULD have sung which included Sam & Jamie duetting on Baby It's Cold Outside (and I will forever love Sam for his incredibly dubious look on the "say what's in this drink" line. I can't remember which song Jamie & Maggie did but they finished with I Want You To Be My Baby with Sam, Maggie & Alex Parker on backup and I think it was even faster than last time (Deb Crowe is basically amazing which is nice because Jamie does look at her as if she hung the stars & moon <3)
Deb also sang this beautiful song called My Ship which apparently she sang at her audition for a thing in Chichester which is where she met Jamie which was so beautiful and was particularly lovely because msot of the numbers she sang with him were comedy ones and whilst she's brilliant at those it was nice just to hear her voice. (For example Jamie always does a number in honour of their son who is nearly FOUR now /o\ but this time instead of something cute they did When The Kids Get Married which was brilliant and involved some truly terrible violin from Deb)
What else? Maggie Service sang 100 Ways to Lose a Man which I hadn't heard before and ABSOLUTELY loved and really really want a vid using it with some of fandoms more awesome ladies (like it very much reads Peggy Carter to me for starters)
And of course there was a bunch of just Jamie- he sang his terrible Once audition again and the whole of Whitney Houston’s One Moment in Time which he sang in his audition for American Psycho and DURING which his incredibly supportive wife handed out glowsticks and got the whole audience swaying before taking a selfie with Sam, Maggie & Alex. IDK why Jamie keeps doing that given he always looks so embarrassed afterwards <3
To my utter delight he ALSO did the Hamlet number from Red Hot & Blue by Frank Loesser which I LOVED last time and just want to listen to again and again because it's so stupid.
I swear I'm missing a hundred other songs although that said the whole gig was only 90 minutes (and yet it felt like so much more) They did their two duets at once which was hilarious when sung by 3 people but actually kind of amazing when done properly with 4 and then the encore was Nobody Does It Like Me because of the general theme of failure *g*
In case you can't tell it was just the best evening <3 there were loads of their friends and family in (including a couple of tables full of Globe stewards <3) and I just wanted to stay forever *sighs*
They definitely were filming it though, and recording the sound using actual equipment rather than Jamie's phone so fingers crossed it'll appear online somewhere eventually.
I CANNOT WAIT for High Society (6th June for me, less than a month away!
(interesting note- apparently I don't actually have an icon of Jamie & Sam together?! I have Sam with Dom Cooper and Jamie with Tom Hiddleston but other than this general one nothing of just the two of them which is ridiculous because they are clearly the most OTP of OTPS (whilst obviously both being part of separate relationships that make me a bit stary eyed too :-P))