Both Liza Pulman and Joe Stilgoe come from performing families. Her mother was an actor, and her father was an accomplished screenwriter responsible for the BBC’s I, Claudius adaptation; his mother was an opera singer who hated musical theatre – unfortunately so, as her husband, Joe’s father, Richard Stilgoe, ended up collaborating with Andrew Lloyd Webber multiple times.
But from these families came two people obsessed with movie musicals. Any evening of cabaret performances of classic Hollywood tunes would be time well spent, but in the hands of this duo, the songs are elevated further. The combination of Stilgoe’s jazz roots and Pulman’s crystal-clear musical theatre vocals works wonders.
Opening with a medley of movie standards covering everything from West Side Story to Cabaret, the pair comically namechecks numerous movie stars, from Fred Astaire to George Clooney – and, noticeably, Marni Nixon three times, a nod to her roles (uncredited at the time) as the singing voice for multiple actresses from Natalie Wood to Audrey Hepburn.
As we head away from the introductory medley and into the individual numbers, the skill of Stilgoe’s arrangements becomes evident. While some numbers, such as City of Stars from La La Land and Singin’ in the Rain, are played mostly straight, the pair are quite happy to mix up some of the older numbers with new rhythms, from a coolly syncopated version of Mary Poppins’ Spoonful of Sugar and, naturally, I Got Rhythm from An American in Paris.
Laughter is very much the watchword, although there is time for romanticism, most notably with a combination of My Fair Lady’s Wouldn’t It Be Loverly and I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face. Stilgoe sings the latter (as opposed to Rex Harrison’s speak-singing) and highlights how Lerner and Loewe’s number is a great romantic ballad in its own right.
Stilgoe has a solo spot riffing through other non-musical film music, with a heavy emphasis on John Williams’s work. And that is possibly the part of the show that is purely 100% Hollywood, for many of the numbers that Pullman and Stilgoe refer to throughout the evening have their origins on the stage, and their movie connections are through adaptations.
This fact is not acknowledged but leaned into, from discussions about Fiddler on the Roof to a section devoted to Stephen Sondheim, injected into this celebration of Hollywood via the film versions of Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods. But it is undeniable that most of the songs the pair perform have become beloved standards through the magic of cinema. And so The Trolley Song and Well, Did you Evah!, both written for the screen, rub shoulders quite comfortably with Rodgers and Hammerstein numbers that first came to life in musical theatre.
In all, the evening is a delight, buoyed by both Stilgoe and Pulman’s comedic abilities. There is a greater sense of scripted structure at play than in many a cabaret performance, but it is all deserved with such affection and flair that the sense of warmth is present throughout. As a love letter to the delights of musical theatre on film, it is hard to beat.
Reviewed on 13 April 2026 and continues to tour
