Perth Theatre
Four stars
Seasonal snow came early to Perth last weekend in this high-class tribute to the songs of Irving Berlin, who transformed the Great American Songbook with some of the twentieth century’s greatest showtunes. This was despite the fact that Berlin couldn’t read sheet music and only had limited piano skills.
White Christmas alone has become a tinsel tinged evergreen that graced two musicals in its first flourish, was picked up by all the greats, from Bing Crosby to Frank Sinatra and beyond. The song has since become a guaranteed showstopper at festive functions and family gatherings ever since. There is, of course, a story behind how Berlin came to write it.
Writer Jane Livingstone and director April Chamberlain use this as the perfect excuse for a fantastical burl through Berlin’s greatest hits that sees the song itself show up in Berlin’s Tin Pan Alley office. This is occupied by Moneta, who may or may not be a gallus goddess who beamed down from on high to embody some of the Hollywood greats who interpreted Berlin’s back catalogue. The song, meanwhile, is embodied as a wannabe matinee idol who shows up like he’s hawking his own musical wares in a classic showbiz rags to riches yarn, only to run the gauntlet of the formidable Moneta.
As elaborate an opening wheeze as it is, none of this matters much once things get going, as Frances Thorburn and Ross Forbes-MacKenzie form an all singing, all dancing double act to bring the songs to life in what is essentially a song-by-song by Berlin musical revue.
The duo are accompanied by musical director Hilary Brooks on a white piano tucked into the back of Martha Lironi’s lavish boudoir styled set with a scarlet chaise longue at its centre. Illuminated by Cameron Squires’ multi coloured lighting as they leap their way through Ian West’s choreography, Thorburn and Forbes-MacKenzie vamp it up and hoof their way through a rapid-fire selection like an MGM clip show, from the comic duet of Sisters to a deeply affecting Supper Time before getting to White Christmas itself.
The songs are knitted together with a dot-to-dot anecdotal biography of Berlin that shows how a Russian Jewish emigre came to write God Bless America and a whole lot more before the songs themselves do the talking in a thoroughly modern reinvention of the sort of tribute act that could run and run.
The Herald, October 27th 2025
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