My mom and I just got home from the opening performance of Brett Somers' cabaret show in New York City, and all I can say is \"Wow!\"
The Queen of Match Game was in fine form and is as nuts as ever. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much. She had the entire room in stitches for the hour or so that she performed. I cannot say enough about how much I thoroughly enjoyed the show.
If you're planning to go to one of the remaining performances and don't want to know all about it in advance, you may want to skip the rest of this post. And I definitely recommend the show to any Match Game fan. Or, in fact, to anyone with a sense of humor.
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The show was essentially Brett's own autobiography, the abridged version, punctuated by a number of show tunes. She opened with the song \"Some People\" from Gypsy and then began her life story with her leaving a farewell note to her mother and hopping a train from Portland, Maine, to NYC. The tunes were cleverly woven in at just the right places, and Brett was clearly having a great time with some of the lyrics. (But don't ask me to remember any of the song titles—I'm not very versed in Broadway and the only reason I know the opening song is because of an interview I read where Brett said what the opening song was.) My mom is around the same age as Brett but had never heard of her before I started watching Match Game (in fact, she once walked into the room during an episode and thought Brett was Anne Meara), but she knew most of the songs and she agreed that Brett put on a wonderful show.
As far as Brett's singing goes, I was quite impressed. She's not Barbra Streisand and she knows it, but she's a much better singer than one might have guessed from seeing her on Match Game and hearing people tease her about her low, gravely voice. She's obviously had some vocal coaching, and she works well with the voice she has. It was also evident that she was very comfortable with the material she was singing.
(Continued in next post)
