Ramin Karimloo is one charismatic performer and he didn’t fail to charm the entire audience at his one night only concert at the London Palladium on 16th of July.
Fusing musical theatre standards with Bluegrass and Country to create a unique sound he calls ‘Broadgrass’, Ramin and his band, which includes other musical theatre alumni Hadley Fraser treated their audience to an eclectic mix of songs which included: ‘Till I hear you sing’ from Love Never Dies, ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’ from Oaklahoma and Cat Stevens ‘Wild World’.
Louise Dearman joined Ramin to duet on ‘Could we start again please?’ from Jesus Christ Superstar and completely knocked it out of the park with a solo rendition of ‘Don’t Forget Me’ from Smash.
Particularly notable was a duet with Fraser of the Les Miserables Classic ‘Empty chairs at empty tables’, a comical line fluff at the start aside, the lights slowly fading on the smoke into the red, white and blue of the French flag gave the rendition extra poignancy in light of recent world events.
Another highlight for me was Ramins’ performance of ‘Music of the Night’. Only accompanied by an acoustic guitar it was sultry and powerful, you could hear a pin drop in the auditorium.
Near the end of his concert, Ramin shouted out to his two children to make sure they were OK and still awake- it was a really sweet touch.
Ramins style is unique and wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste, but what he does he does well and no one can deny the beauty of his voice or his wonderful stage presence.
Reviewed by Byron Butler
