Liza sings Streisand
Fans of Barbra Streisand may not be able to mark the star’s 75th birthday this month by seeing the star herself, but the next best thing is definitely Liza Pulman’s Liza Sings Streisand tour.
Liza — best known as one of the Fascinating Aida trio — has picked her favourite Streisand songs for the tour, which kicks off at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry on May 3, taking in gigs in London and Radlett among others through May and early June.
“Barbra Streisand is a totally unique artist,” says Liza. “A woman who has managed to shape her own career, retain artistic control, be as funny as a clown and yet still be taken totally seriously as the extraordinary singer that she is. She is and always has been an enormous influence on me and it is a treat to be able to be singing these great songs with my amazing band in some of England’s finest venues.”
Lone Jew
Dom Marco Raphael was supposedly the only Jew in England at the time of Henry VIII, the inventor of invisible ink, picking his way through a murky world of intrigue, racism and prejudice when asked to write a Jewish view of Henry’s first divorce. He’s the subject of playwright Samatha Ellis’s latest, which is performed by the East 15 Acting School at the Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch May 18-20 and promises “a world of music, glamour, flirtation and gripping political tension.”
Shoah music
Musician Nick Strimple has compiled a concert of music composed and performed during the Holocaust. The concert includes Max Helfman’s Die Naye Hagode, a cantata about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Although not Jewish himself, Nick Strimple was appointed in 1985 by the Czech government to extensively research music of the Holocaust, a path he’s followed ever since. This is the first time in several decades that he has performed in London.
Singing in the Lion’s Mouth is at the China Exchange on May 4.
Klezmer mix
Part klezmer cabaret, part oriental ragtime, part theatrical storytelling, don’t miss The Disorientalists at the Rich Mix Cultural Foundation in Bethnal Green on May 4.
The Berlin-based band comprises Yuriy Gurzhy, Daniel Kahn and Marina Frenk. They joined forces to write and perform a piece of musical theatre based on the life of Essad Bey the alias used by Lev Nussimbaum, author of Ali and Nino, set in Baku during the Russian revolution. Described as “a little bit folkloristic, a little bit klezmer, incorporating elements of swing and oriental romance,” the band perform songs on baglama, accordion and piano.
Agunah drama
If you missed Radio 4’s airing of a new play, The Book of Yehudit last week, then you have until May 21 to catch it on iplayer. The drama is the radio debut for Adam Usden, a young Jewish writer from Manchester. It tells the story of Yehudit and Naftali, from Manchester’s Charedi community who are getting divorced. When Naftali refuses Yehudit a get, tensions escalate. The cast includes Jewish actors Yasmin Paige (Submarine, Glue, Ballet Shoes) and David Fleeshman (Death of a Salesman, Glengarry Glen Ross). Usden, 28, researched the play carefully, consulting Gloria Proops of the Agunot Campaign and other women from the Charedi community. “I was very aware that I was not just opening up an issue, but a whole way of life, to a non-Jewish audience and so felt a great deal of responsibility to make sure what I wrote was both sensitive and honest,” he said. “The hardest thing was to fit it all into 45 minutes!
Brighton beats
Only the fifth woman to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Score, Mica Levi who composed the music for Jackie, starring Natalie Portman was unlucky to lose out to La La Land. The classically trained musician, who creates experimental pop with her band Micachu and the Shapes, was also nominated for a Bafta for Jackie, and for her first film score, Under the Skin, which featured Scarlett Johansson as an alien.
Levi is one of the artists featured at this year’s Brighton Festival, and she will conduct the London Sinfionetta orchestra playing her score for Under the Skin alongside a screening of the film at the Brighton Dome Theatre on May 7.
The Festival Fringe features Longing, or Exile at Home, by Jaffa Theatre about Jewish and Arab experiences of exile. And watch out for comedians Naomi Paul and Lynn Ruth Miller.
www. brightonfestival.org
