Mickey and Judy

Michael Hughes has been a Judy Garland devotee for almost as long as he can remember, and here he presents a show that is essentially a love letter to the lady herself, with some reminiscence and gentle soul searching along the way. Fans of musicals and self discovery will find much to enjoy here.

Anecdotes from his childhood, from cross dressing as a toddler—and his subsequent psychiatric analysis—to running away to New York and discovering fellow musical lovers, are interspersed with the music. Sweet as the content is, it's all quite predictable. Having said that, it could quite easily have fallen into the trap of over-sharing, or expressing nothing but resentment, but happily Hughes avoids doing either. 

Still, it would've been nice if there was less talking and more singing. The musical elements serve as a vehicle for his really quite extraordinary voice—the microphone was practially superfluous in such an intimate setting—but the songs also clearly hold immense personal significance. Aficionados would probably recognise all of the tunes but at times it'd be easy to believe they were Hughes' own work: his perfect vibrato could well be disguising a tremble of emotion during a few of the pieces.

Early in the show, Hughes tells us that characters in musicals sing when they are too emotional to speak. Emotions or not, when you can sing like this, talking is overrated.