Poisoning pigeons and fishy French

Richard Suart, baritone, at Muncaster Castle. Part of Rosehill Theatre's On The Road programme.


ANYONE who puts on a programme featuring songs celebrating masochism, telling of poisoning pigeons in the park or warning you There’s Always Something Fishy About the French either likes to live dangerously or is genuinely inspired.
Fortunately, the audience opted for the latter option when they heard baritone Richard Suart perform at Muncaster Castle.
And rather appropriately for the sumptuous setting he included the Noel Coward song, The Stately Homes of England.
Richard demonstrated that Coward’s songs had the timelessness that only works of genius can achieve. Coward never worried about political correctness during his life time and it seems unlikely to stop him now he’s dead.
The first half were almost entirely Coward songs with their delightfully waspish lyrics which, after 100 years, could still evoke great laughter. And anecdotes between the songs from Coward’s diaries and newspaper cuttings generated an atmosphere of warming nostalgia.
The second half of the show – part of Rosehill Theatre’s On The Road programme – included works from America’s answer to Noel Coward: Tom Lehrer. A man of whom the New York Times once said his muse “is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste".
Mr Lehrer himself – who is still alive – famously said  of his musical career, “If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while”.
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park was one of his less offensive songs and Richard also performed Lehrer’s Vatican Rag.
It’s good to know that offending people isn’t the sole domain of the young, or wasn’t invented by the Sex Pistols in 1975. But this was also an evening of love songs and bitter sweet songs. And they were all performed with the apparent ease that only a professional of Suart’s experience can achieve. 
- Review by Alan Cleaver