Queer singer-songwriter, Hersh Dagmarr, and pianist and arranger, Karen Newby, present a lively reworking of Pet Shop Boys’ songs in their cabaret show, Indefinite Leave to Remain. Its conceit is the transposition to Weimar Berlin of some of Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant’s favourite numbers. Darmarr jumps on stage in furs with a natty suitcase from which emerge various props to hint at some shady dive. He’s got a lovely voice and is an engaging performer as a sultry nightclub singer. But too often the promised Weimar decadence gives way to gentle charm and flirtation.
Dagmarr’s best numbers are the anger-fuelled ones, powerful renditions of West End Girls and Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money). But he performs It’s a Sin with odd quasi-Spanish dance movements, which distract from the unbeatable original. And listening to all these songs arranged for piano and solo voice, one misses the driving rhythms of the original synth-pop arrangements.
But where the show works well is in Karen Newby’s extraordinarily imaginative arrangements. The show opens with a beguiling medley: Also Sprach Zarathustra segues into something patriotically English. And then, is that a snippet of God Save the Queen? Of course, it is, as we’ll later have Dreaming of the Queen. Meanwhile, Dagmarr has some comic business where he preens in what appears to be a mirror, but which turns out to be a picture of Princess Di. Later there’s a surprising opening of L’aprés-midi d’un faune which makes sense when we get to the line about ‘dancing to the Rite of Spring’. Rent gets some effective dissonances in the accompaniment.
While it’s not a jukebox musical, Dagmarr weaves the songs together with various comic or faintly melancholic links. ‘I’m a romantic,’ he reminds us several times. He does a few seconds of Sally Bowles and later presents himself as a vamp. But there’s nothing dark or dangerous here.
Dagmarr and Newby clearly have a devoted following, but one suspects the audience was hoping for more of an opportunity to sing along towards the end.
Reviewed on 28 June 2024
