Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, theatre review: A powerhouse performance

It’s not at all the done thing to dwell on an actress’s vital statistics but, my goodness, Audra McDonald’s are fantastic.

The winner of a record-breaking six Tony Awards, spanning no less than all four of the acting categories, this star of New York theatre now exports to London the turn that bagged her Tony number six. It seems almost redundant to report that McDonald gives a powerhouse performance as an ailing but still proud Billie Holiday.

Lanie Robertson’s ‘musical play’, virtually a one-woman show, is more than 30 years old now, but the timeless magnetism of Billie Holiday is imagined afresh by McDonald. Emerson’s is a night spot in South Philadelphia – bar room-style tables and on-stage seating add to the intimate atmosphere in Lonny Price’s production – and the legendary Lady Day is just months away from death.

Buy tickets for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill with Evening Standard Tickets

Now painfully dependent on drink and drugs, she starts off by slurring and stumbling and things don’t improve as the evening wears on and her long white gloves come down to reveal terrible track marks up her arm.

But that voice, packed with emotion, is still capable of soaring on the likes of Strange Fruit and God Bless the Child, and McDonald squeezes out every last drop of emotion. She also milks the poignant humour in the ever-lengthening gaps between songs, as Billie rambles semi-coherently about stand-out events in her chaotic life, underscored as it was by an unrelenting note of racial discrimination.

Initially her well-meaning pianist (Shelton Becton) intervenes with a well-timed line of music when she’s in danger of shooting her mouth off, but even he admits defeat well before the end. Yet still she stands, broken but indomitable to the last.

Until Sept 9, Wyndham's Theatre