By Elizabeth Ahlfors

"John Standing Performing Noël Coward"

Sir Noël Coward has passed on to loftier venues, but Sir John Standing remains to sing his repertoire of witty, risqué ditties and some of the most beautiful sentimental ballads around.

Standing interweaves 16 Coward selections with personal anecdotes as well as some tidbits about Coward. A distinguished film and stage actor, Standing comes from a long thespian line reaching back to 1809. His mother, Kay Hammond, was an actress, and while she was playing Elvira on Broadway in Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, ten-year-old John met Coward in Hammond's dressing room. He remembers, "Everything shone. Everything about him was shining." Years later, while Standing was serving in World War II, Coward acknowledged him at a Café de Paris engagement in London. Standing asked him to sing a specific song, providing a smooth segue here for "Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs. Worthington" that Standing delivers as a hilarious clenched-jaw warning.

His delivery is effortless and engaging. He is meticulous with Coward's lavish patter songs, which he often sings parlando, like the wicked whispery gossip in "I've Been to a Marvelous Party" exclaiming "I couldn't have liked it more!" He never faults on a word, his phrasing is acute, and the bons mots are pinpointed with perfect timing. With precise and crisp diction, he elicits all the juiciness from Coward's complex internal rhymes and rhythms. Images are created through songs like "Nina" (that disagreeable señorita from Argentina who said she would never dance a step until she died) and the naughty ex-missionary, "Uncle Harry," who's not a missionary anymore. During World War II, Coward entertained the Allied Forces in Southeast Asia and was probably inspired by the Indian Army troops to write "I Wonder What Happened to Him," abundant with rumors about Prosser, Pyecroft, Pym and others.

Sir John Standing was born John Ronald Leon, eventually succeeding his father, Sir Ronald George Leon, as the fourth baronet. Until 1937, the Leon's family country home was Bletchley Park, used during World War II as a code-breaking center. Standing delivers an homage, Noël Coward style, to these houses with "The Stately Homes of England" ("The stately homes of England we proudly represent/ We only keep them up for Americans to rent."). He also gives a prescient nod to contemporary affairs with "There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner."

Although Standing admits, "I sing like a foot," he includes ballads like "Somewhere I'll Find You." Of course, Coward himself once pointed out, "I can't sing, but I know how to, which is quite different." Standing also knows how to deliver the intent of the songs and he does it well. Near the end of the show, his rendition of "I'll See You Again," despite vocal potholes, is quite moving, romanticized further by music director Stuart Barr's lush piano arrangement.

I must mention, however, that while Stuart Barr was debonair in a white dinner jacket, Standing looked as if he'd run on stage after a busy day of city sightseeing in the rain. Noël Coward?—Wrinkled clothes?—Café Carlyle? This does not compute. Perhaps there is a reason for the careless garb, but I don't buy it.

That aside, I've been to a marvelous party with John Standing, and I couldn't have liked it more. Noël Coward has been called "The Master" and John Standing is a prize pupil. This show is a perfect way to continue appreciating the Coward canon.