If you are one of the notoriously obsessive fans of late singer-songwriter Jacques Brel, one of those elusive five famous Belgians, you probably caught this show on its Boxing Day opening.
I've personally always preferred la douce France of Charles Trenet but there can be no denying that Anthony Cable gives Brel's memorable music and skilful lyrics some mighty emotional clout in this solo show.
Writer/director Judith Paris has Brel do what all stars tend to in these onstage situations, namely reminisce from a near-death vantage point. It's a notoriously tricky path to navigate, between the Scylla of excess autobiography and Charybdis of under-explanation, and here the noodling between songs tends to the whimsical.
"What is love?" asks Brel, mercifully with no 'Allo 'Allo-type accent. "What is art?" As for his increasingly tangled personal life: "Oh woman, the devourer of men."
But the songs are the thing and Cable provides 15 of the more than 400 that Brel wrote, sung with remarkable passion in both French and English. Aficionados tend to get antsy when Brel is given the Anglophone treatment but Cable has supplied some sensitive translations. Perennial favourites Madeleine and Ne Me Quitte Pas are sensibly left untouched.
Until 13 January (0870 033 2733, www.newendtheatre.co.uk).
Jacques Brel - The Rage To Live
New End Theatre
New End, Heath Street, Hampstead, NW3 1JD
