It’s hard to put into words the kind of evening Patti LuPone can conjure. Anyone who has seen her in a full blown musical extravaganza will know she’s got the acting chops — but a solo cabaret act is no mean feat. For LuPone, though, it’s about as easy an endeavour as tucking into a Sunday dinner. In her new 2024–2025 tour, A Life In Notes, performing at the Coliseum for one night only (her only scheduled tour date outside of America and Australia), LuPone brings us all three courses of the most wholesome meal that delivers powerhouse performances pieces alongside intimate portraits of her ideas of family, home and life itself. It’s an absolute triumph from start to finish.

Decked out in a chic, black suit with glitzy trim, LuPone opens the show with a string of relatively niche songs which she insists all hold deep meaning to her. Many prove a departure from LuPone’s usual brassy vocals, with songs like ‘Lilac Wine’ and ‘Ebb Tide’ showing off her ability to tug at the heart strings with her soft soprano lilt. It’s impressive and moving, and chimes with the tone of the whole evening — often caked in a glossy pink light, which bounces off the grand piano and large bunch of thick red roses.

Act two sees a momentary change in tone as, armed with a vivacious silver sparkling dress, complete with full length cape, LuPone goes through her hit makers from ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’, through ‘I Dreamed a Dream’, to ‘Ladies Who Lunch’. The crowd-pleasers induce upwards of four or five mid-show standing ovations (I lost count!), not to mention some audience interaction. (One man shouted, “I still do!” in response to the famous Company line… “does anyone still wear a hat”).

LuPone is backed by long-time music director and collaborator Joseph Thalken on piano, along with Brad Phillips on all the strings, who both have plenty of stand-out moments themselves, but never dare stretch too close to the limelight. They know, as we do from the get-go, that this extremely personal evening is a journey LuPone must take on her own… which is, as usual, just how she likes it.

Patti LuPone’s A Life in Notes reviewed on Sunday, 16 February, 2025, at the Coliseum in London.