Friday night a packed Concert Hall saw the return of Elvis, yes a tribute act obviously, but a very good one, hence the full house.
Ben Portsmouth is an award-winning impersonator and has been for over a decade, he has the looks, the moves, the humour, and most importantly the voice.
The first half was Elvis in his early years and when he was drafted into the army and the song choices reflected that ‘Don’t be Cruel’ a hit from 1956 for example.
Ben got the audience singing for ‘Wooden Heart (Muss I Denn)’ and then the classic ‘GI Blues’. Then he made the mistake (for him) getting Sylvie onto the stage for him to sing ‘Love me Tender’ to, she was a one word at a time riot. What do you do Sylvie? ‘Nothing’ replies Sylvie. What did you do before doing, nothing ? ‘not a lot’ says Sylvie, and so it went on.
Elvis then changed into Black leathers and sung ,’Heartbreak Hotel’ and ‘Jailhouse Rock’ to a very excited audience.
The interval for 25 minutes
Elvis backing group/band 9 all very talented musicians, I particularly enjoyed the outstanding drummer and the three members in the brass section.
So we are now transported to his 1970’s Las Vegas shows, two of my favourite songs ‘Polk Salad Annie’ and ‘If I Can Dream’, if you shut your eyes, yes Elvis back in the house.
Then for me the show nosedived with Ben handing out scarves and throwing teddy bears into the audience and reading out dedications, which seemed to go on for ages.
The show seemed confused, sometimes he was Ben being Elvis which worked and was believable, but not sure he had the charisma to be doing these audience involvements as if he was the actual Elvis. At this point many started leaving as the show over running over by nearly half an hour. It would have been better if he had left us wanting more and finished on time.
7/10
By James Millichip
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