Jim Dale waits for applause — of which there’s plenty — in new one-man show (photo by Joan Marcus)
Laura Pels Theatre
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
111 West 46th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 10, $79
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org
Jim Dale shares his love of the footlights in his charming new one-man show, Just Jim Dale. Over the course of one hundred minutes, the Tony- and Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated British actor traces his life and career, from his birth in the small town of Rothwell, “the dead center of England — in every way,” to his more recent fame as the man who voices the Harry Potter audiobooks. Dale, who will turn seventy-nine in August, is a tall, lanky performer who took his father’s words to heart: “Learn how to move,” his dad told him when young Jim Smith, Dale’s real name, expressed interest in show business after they saw Me and My Girl. Dale recalls his early days as a dancer, a British music hall comedian, and a pop singer, including a very funny bit in which he re-creates a pas de deux he was supposed to do with his cousin Ruth in a ballet competition when he was about eleven, but she missed the bus and Jim did the duet himself. Accompanied by co-arranger Mark York on piano, Jim performs songs from Me and My Girl and Barnum, for which he won a Tony playing Phineas Taylor Barnum; sings the music hall standard “Turned Up” and songs that he wrote, including the pop hit “Dicka Dum Dum” and “Georgy Girl”; and tells lots of old, purposely groan-worthy jokes. (“I said, ‘Waiter, what’s this?’ He said, ‘It’s bean soup.’ I said, ‘I don’t care what it’s been. What is it now?’”)
Jim Dale looks back at his life and career in charming Roundabout production (photo by Joan Marcus)
Dale also recites the climactic scene from Noël Coward’s Fumed Oak; gives a tour-de-force lesson in quoting Shakespeare in contemporary language (“If you can’t understand an argument and you say, ‘It’s all Greek to me,’ you’re quoting Shakespeare.”); and performs the powerful opening moments from Peter Nichols’s Joe Egg, getting the audience involved. In fact, throughout the show, Dale interacts with the crowd, occasionally ad-libbing and making everyone feel comfortable and welcome. He’s an amiable fellow, so it’s easy to forgive some of the transitions that need tightening, the timeline that occasionally gets confusing, and a few of the bits that go on too long (the Fumed Oak scene, for example). Dale begins the show, which is directed by Richard Maltby Jr. (Ain’t Misbehavin’, Fosse), with “I Gotta Be Me,” in which he sings, “So I’ve got to be me / I’ve said it before / A juicieful actor / for folks to adore.” Just Jim Dale reveals the many surprising facets of this juicieful actor who is easy to adore.