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# REVIEW: Sondheim Divas by Tim McArthur
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/review-sondheim-divas-by-tim-mcarthur/
- Published: 2021-11-02T14:14:23.000Z
- Updated: 2021-11-01T11:04:41.000Z
- Description: Brian Butler has a great gender-swapping Sondheim night in Brighton whilst being entertained by a host of Sondheim Divas from Tim McArthur
- Author: Brian Butler
- Tags: Arts, Cabaret, Musical Theatre, Reviews, Latest Music Bar, Stephen Sondheim, Tim McArthur

Cabaret performer, writer and director[ **Tim McArthur**](http://timmcarthur.com/?ref=scenemag.co.uk) tells us late on in his show that the gender of the singers/characters in the great anthems of Stephen Sondheim doesn’t matter – Sondheim is riding about the human condition. I agree.

As a performer, Tim has power, energy, emotion and truthfulness t above all he’s a great storyteller, lie his hero Sondheim, bringing the intricate and wordy lyrics to life and making us understand the thoughts and feelings of the characters in the songs he chooses.

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/49dfc6f6-092600.png)](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/home/)

So the twist throughout is that Tim has requisitioned the best female solos for himself, and as if to emphasises that he appears in a half-shirt, half-dress, with glittery a rings and silver slippers. With the highly talented **Aaron Clingham** at the keyboard, each song is a surprising delight – from his opening as the artist’s model in Sunday in The Park With Gorge, to a belting wow of a Broadway Baby.

In between we get the gently haunting In Buddy’s Eyes, from Follies, and the cleverness of What More Do I Need? It’s normally a sharp sarcastic comment on life in Manhattan, but here it’s soaring and full of humanity. Fittingly, in Brighton, we get By The Sea, from Sweeney Todd, delightfully frightening – in a good way.

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/0419128b600.png)](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/home/)

Telling us he sometimes thinks his life is a musical,or at best a moment in one, Tim the sings the Baker’s Wife’s sexual awakening song A Moment In The Woods. As his into: “ if life was only moments, then you’d never know you had one”. Tim’s skill throughout is to make conceptual lyrics makes sense – nowhere more so than in the enigmatic There Won’t Be Trumpets – sung with power, passion and a gentle clarity.

Among the many peaks in this performance Leave Me from Follies about a failed marriage is certainly one, and the bewitching Last Midnight from Into The Woods is another – chillingly honest and dark.

Sondheim Divas was at the Latest Music Bar.

[**For Tim’s other shows go to timmcarthur.com**](http://timmcarthur.com/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)