As Time Goes By: Stories and Songs With Susie Kennedy, Viking Theatre

January is such an appropriate time to comment on fad diets. Or a celebrity's line of Yoga clothes (and their pricetag!). Susie Kennedy does just this, from an older person's perspective, but there is a universality about it as she tells us of her endeavours over the last few years with the cabbage soup diet, and the baby food diet. I must admit to having to Google that last one as I did think perhaps it was somewhat bizarre, and maybe a touch of satire thrown in. In other words, made up for comic effect. But no. It is a thing it seems. At least the internet says so. I am sure future people of planet earth will look back and think us mad. And this is just the subtext that Kennedy hints at in relating her experiences of these 'fads', that it is all a bit mad. Maybe life itself.

As Time Goes By isn't just about fad diets, greying hair, and the ageing process, although the stories and songs do take all this in. Comedy is the binding force in the songs and stories. The songs are those made famous by Sophie Tucker and Ella Fitzgerald, to name a few, with some comic alterations to other songs from Porter and Sondheim, making it all topical and fun. A lot of fun. And that is really what it is all about. 

Kennedy is aided, and abetted, on piano by Carole Nelson, and both seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. Thankfully, from what I saw, the audience are too. Yes, it is light, with some faux seriousness that is more for building to a joke, helped by a twinkle in Kennedy's eye, or a side glance to the pianist, but it is pulled of with tongue in cheek charm by Kennedy that is hard not to like. Her interactions with the audience are wonderful as well. Kennedy has a great delivery, and the balance of song and stories, is on the whole just right. Although, I would contend that there is one Tucker song too many.

It all is a revue-come-cabaret, stand up, with purple velvet drapes, a table, chair and a tailor's dummy effectively creating a boudoir, or a 1920s star's dressing room. The fourth wall is demolished and the audience welcomed in. And while Kennedy never leaves the stage, her presence and easy going delivery, stretches out across the intimate setting, and by the end of act one the audience are eating out of her hand. And she has them singing along. The first half is more balanced than the second, but the final character Kennedy plays is extremely convincing. 

Behind all the stories there are a number of writers, and the changed lyric songs are perhaps a nod to the Tucker days. The good news is, time does go by quickly, with the feeling that everyone in the room, and on the stage, is escaping the woe's of the world for a hour on so. Or as the riff on Sondheim's I'm Still Here reminds us - 'I got through 2016, And I'm here'. Didn't we all. This is an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. And now I know about the baby food diet. You learn something new every day.