Audra McDonald won a great many awards in New York for her solo performance in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill – a tribute to the singer Billie Holiday – and I have no doubt that her reception in London will match New York’s.
Lanie Robertson’s script is billed as a musical play. It is, in fact, a cabaret performance with anecdotes and commentary on Holiday’s life. To create the cabaret atmosphere, the seats in the front six rows of the stalls have been removed and replaced with tables and chairs. The audience also sits at tables on the stage.
