Apologies for not being active over the last week. I was on holiday in Rome, I didn’t really want to write any of my reviews on my phone and I needed to focus on some other things happening in my day job. However, the good news is by the time I got back I managed to get a last minute ticket to see Les Miz and Phantom favourite John Owen-Jones finish his Music of the Night UK tour at Her Majesty’s Theatre.
For a bit of background, I am a huge fan of John Owen-Jones. While I’ve sadly missed out on chances to see him perform his most iconic roles onstage, I’ve had the chance to see him perform at the 25th anniversary of The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall, on TV (and the occasional bootleg but don’t tell anybody). Becoming one of my top tier Phantoms, I knew I had to finally see him live along with some surprise guests!
John Owen-Jones: Music of the Night
Rating: ★★★★★
Venue: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Date: September 18th 2022
This is the first proper time I’ve seen a concert featuring a musical theatre performer that isn’t a show itself, and the pre-show announcement set up the tone. Why? We were urged to watch it while under sleep hypnosis, buy as much merch as possible because they need the money and not have our phones out despite the temptation to check the time or take photos during the show (a photographer running up and down the aisles did an amazing job of doing that for us). As John Owen-Jones entered the stage to sing Corner of the Sky from Pippin with the perfect amount of irony.
For the next two and a half hours, John Owen-Jones treated us to a concert filled with music, joy and a surprising amount of laughs on my end (most likely to the annoyance of the people sat next to me). This concert proves he is a master showman and storyteller, cracking a mixture of scripted jokes and ad-libbed banter with the audience between beautifully singing a surprisingly diverse setlist and fully inhabiting the characters he plays onstage.
What was the setlist like?
If you’re going in thinking John would just sing the usual showtunes, which he does like South Pacific’s Some Enchanted Evening and Jekyll & Hyde’s This Is The Moment, you may be in for a surprise in the best way. Between the classics, he freshens things up with a mix of big band jazz numbers like Feeling Good and Tom Jones’ (no relation) Thunderball, and surprisingly emotional ballads from more obscure musicals like Tell My Father from Frank Wildhorn’s The Civil and Sailing from A New Brain. This is all while he was fully aware that we were waiting with bated breath for him to sing Bring Him Home and Music of the Night.
Listening to the more obscure songs in the setlist gave me an appreciation for John Owen-Jones highlighting musicals that people wouldn’t know about or didn’t have the chance to see. This is something that extended to the amazing orchestra and crew, making it so much more than just the John Owen-Jones show (we’ll get to the elephant in the room in a bit). Having the occasional tea break to let his longtime collaborator John Quirk sing a version Losing My Mind from Follies.
Were there standout moments at John Owen-Jones Music of the Night?
There were so many standout moments that it’s impossible to pick one. It would be easy to just say Bring Him Home and Music of the Night then move on, but that would dampen everything else that happened leading up to the grand finale. To say the entire concert was entertaining would be an understatement, and here’s a taste of what happened leading up to that encore.
- John singing a version of Aspects of Love’s Love Changes Everything that I won’t look at the same way again as we were all privy to a secret we had to verbally promise not to tell anyone and especially the Queen of Theatre Michael Ball (his words).
- An a capella version of Sonny Boy
- Ending act one with arguably the best song from the…less than stellar Phantom sequel Love Never Dies, Til I Hear You Sing.
- Getting different sides of the audience to sing increasingly longer and vocally straining notes leading to Proud from The Baker’s Wife, including one woman getting her own applause for opting up.
- Former Phantom and Javert Earl Carpenter reminiscing with John Owen-Jones about their times working together in Phantom and the Les Miz 25th anniversary tour that would become the of the West End production.
- Immediately afterwards achieving my dream of seeing Earl perform Stars live which he sang beautifully
- A SuBo joke that left me in stitches
- Most poignantly, a moment’s silence for the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, .
The elephant in the room…
You all came for it. Let’s discuss the encore featuring the aforementioned Earl Carpenter and three other Phantoms: Ben Forster, Scott Davies and Tim Howar. Apparently the Phantoms John Owen-Jones really wanted weren’t available that night. Together they sang a gorgeous rendition of Music of the Night that felt hypnotic (very fitting), with each performer bring their own uniqueness while still blending so well. Having seen Ben and Scott perform as the Phantom while studying at uni, it was also a welcome bout of nostalgia for me to them back onstage again.
I already knew I was going into something amazing when I heard the words “John Owen-Jones” and “Her Majesty’s Theatre”, but it ended up exceeding my expectations in every way. It felt rather poignant for the tour to end in the venue where his career started and it’s one I personally hold close to my heart. A concert on par with the likes of megastars Alfie Boe and Michael Ball, I can’t recommend catching the next concert John does when he comes to a city near you.
Are you a fan of John Owen-Jones? Have you been able to see his Music of the Night tour?
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