Dagmarr's Cabaret - Songs of PSB

[Sandy Shaw]

This amazing performance is happening tonight at Piano Smithfield. Myself and some fan friends caught it at The Glory recently. I highly recommend it, the vocal delivery as we as the piano arrangements and performance are great and it's very funny. They will be performing this again if you miss it today.

https://www.seetickets.com/event/hersh- ... ld/2461429

Dagmarr’s Kabarett: Indefinite Leave to Remain - The music of the Pet Shop Boys

Join the immortal and immoral Hersh Dagmarr as he deconstructs the songs of The Pet Shop Boys and transports them to the Weimar era with his pianist and arranger extraordinaire Karen Newby as a love letter to London.

Hersh Dagmarr is a London-based Queer singer/songwriter and visual artist. His visceral inspiration from the grand Weimar Berlin era mixed with his own experience as a club kid from the noughties and the 2010s evolved into a unique blend of jazz, dance and electronic avant-pop with elements of cabaret mixed in.

“My interest in music is quite polar. It’s equally coming from a faraway past and a rather distant future. Like some kind of haunting past life.”

Karen Newby is an accomplished, versatile piano vocalist, with an ever expanding repertoire covering all styles, Karen performs in 5 star venues around the world.
Classically trained, she has a flawless piano technique which is equally at home playing jazz standards, show tunes and chart hits.

[Sandy Shaw]

Here's my review:

From the moment Hersh Dagmarr and his brilliant accompanist and arranger Karen Newby took to the stage we had echoes of Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Joel Grey and later Miss Eartha Kitt, classic cabaret artistes all. However the evening used a strong grounding in the past to engage with us in the moment with an evening of classic material from Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant aka "Pet Shop Boys" on themes of displacement and finding a home and an ambiguous love affair with London, the conceit being that Hersh was from the original Weimar cabaret era! The performance is very funny.

As a big Pet Shop Boys fan, I also love hearing their material reinterpreted by other acts, as this can highlight the sheer quality and strength of their catalogue and also inject a dose of extra passion. Hersh did exactly this with his remarkable voice and stage presence, commanding our attention with a fur coat and a muff, a suitcase, some super props, his smart suits and not forgetting nipple tassels!

For songs which originally took many hours of studio time with programming and sequencing, these worked superbly in the stripped back arrangements which still often had that great sense of an urgent heartbeat as well as a melancholy side (especially a superb Losing My Mind of course penned by the late great Stephen Sondheim).

Do go and see this if you can, I understand that it will be performed at other venues in due course. To see artistes giving their all on stage in an intimate setting is a rare privilege. Piano Smithfield is very welcoming and made myself and my friends feel at home.

[lucienchardon]

That sounds great, wish I could see it.

[before]

This looks great. Just spotted it's on in Guildford later this month too : https://electric.theatre/shows/hersh-da ... shop-boys/

[OakeyDokey]

I saw this the other night, just down the road in my local high-street, Crouch End Arthouse. It was absolutely fantastic. In fact, so good that I've convinced a friend to see it again in Islington next weekend!