United Kingdom Craig Revel Horwood: Revelations – Songs Boys Don’t Sing: Craig Revel Horwood and Ben Goddard (piano). Towngate Theatre, Basildon, Essex, 14.6.2025. (JPr)
After being told signed copies of Craig Revel Horwood’s debut album Revelations – Songs Boys Don’t Sing would be available after the show we heard one of the tracks, his version of Barbra Streisand’s ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’. On a screen at the back of the stage we saw highlights of Craig’s TV career, naturally with the emphasis on Strictly Come Dancing where he has been a judge since the show first appeared on the BBC in 2004. Later described by Craig as his ‘best friend’, it was left to pianist Ben Goddard to introduce the show by proclaiming ‘Good evening, Basildon! Please welcome to the stage, the living legend, the national treasure, Mr Craig Revel Horwood.’ The first ‘revelation’ is what a good singing voice he has and while he belted out Ethel Merman’s ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’ we watched images of Craig growing up. Ben proved a convivial host, a good singer in his own right and – aided by some artful backing tracks – a wonderful accompanist. Then followed an entertaining, if slightly idiosyncratic evening that brought many in Basildon’s Towngate Theatre to their feet at the end of a taut, interval-less 90 minutes.
The set had the hint of someone’s eclectically furnished living room, there were images of flamingos, a floor lamp, small table and a comfortable red leather armchair to which Craig retired while being questioned by Ben about his life in music. We heard about his early days at school in Sydney where he played the recorder and especially about a group performance at the Sydney Opera House in 1978 which we heard in an old recording. This led to a recorder duet with Ben and Craig followed this up by singing ‘Waltzing Mathilda’ (unsurprisingly not on his CD). Craig’s father was in the Royal Australian Navy, and the family were frequently on the move. On his return to Ballarat where he was born he was ‘Quite a porky little child’ and he enrolled in a jazz ballet class where he ‘fell in love with dancing’. There were further studies in classical ballet, contemporary, modern, jazz, tap, everything.’ Moving to Melbourne he appeared in West Side Story’ when he was 17, performing in musicals in Australia until he was 23. He last role there was in Starkers (aka The Full Monty).
He appeared at the Lido de Paris, moving to the Moulin Rouge as principal singer and lasting one night before getting sacked and coming to London. He was Munkustrap in Cats for six months before joining the company of Miss Saigon. Soon circumstances meant he sometimes appeared in both on the same day, when he recalls he ‘didn’t know if I was a G.I. or a pussy.’ Craig’s singing of ‘Memory’ (Cats) then became a duet with Ben for ‘The Last Night of the World’ (Miss Saigon). He toured with Crazy for You – including appearing on Broadway – before he got to be its director/choreographer which led to him becoming resident director of Miss Saigon.
It was now 2004 and Craig said he ‘wasn’t in the best mood’ when his manger pitched the idea of a new show, Strictly Come Dancing, to him and his reply was ‘That sounds horrendous, absolutely awful, car crash television.’ He reluctantly took the call about it and was asked ‘What would you say if someone wasn’t doing it correctly?’ Craig said he would be ‘absolutely and blatantly honest … tell them the complete truth … tell them they were sh*t.’ That got him a screen test (!) and – with the show having gone to 63 countries worldwide now – the rest is history. It was then we heard how Craig met Ben when he was in a show he put on at Newbury’s Watermill Theatre in 2007, Martin Guerre, with Ben later staring as Joe Gilles in Sunset Boulevard. It would have been great to hear Ben sing ‘Sunset Boulevard’ rather than join Craig in the jokey ‘Strictly BBC’ send-up.
There’s been so much for Craig since including judging on Dancing with the Stars in Australia, the shows he has directed and choreographed, his panto performances and musical theatre starring roles as Miss Hannigan in Annie (with Craig in a red wig we later heard ‘Little Girls’) and the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. On the cinema screen he was in Nativity Rocks! which no one seemed to have seen and choreographed Hugh Grant in Paddington 2. It was now time to dress up as Ursula from The Little Mermaid and sing ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’. One of the best moments in the show followed when Craig allowed the mask of his flamboyant stage persona to fall and pay what was clearly a very heartfelt tribute to James Lee Williams (aka The Vivienne) whom he shared the role of the Wicked Witch with in The Wizard of Oz. Williams died in January at only 32 and Craig sang a mash-up of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and ‘Home’ from The Wiz for him.
Then a very strange interlude followed as Craig recalled his time on MasterChef (runner-up in 2007 and winner of the 2020 Christmas special) as he baked some peanut cookies, using a soya protein equivalent of peanut butter. This allowed him to reminisce about the peanut butter (which Craig hates) he found in the pantry when he came back from a tour as evidence of a long-term boyfriend’s unfaithfulness … perhaps too much oversharing?
It was time for questions from the audience and at least this was spontaneous and not as it can seem in many Q&As like this. Craig said they could be ‘Anything on any subject, I couldn’t care less darlings. Just be aware I will be absolutely honest in my answers … like my judging!’ Things we heard included his favourite choreographed dance (he likes the Argentine Tango and Busby Berkeley), the person he would like to meet but hasn’t (Streisand), favourite singer of all time (Whitney Houston, Streisand, Shirley Bassey, Adam Lambert) and whether he is ever homesick for Australia (he gets to go back but calls UK his home).
As the show ended it became rather maudlin as Craig recalled his unhappy, abusive childhood mainly because of his father’s struggles with alcoholism; though again this was when he seemed at his most genuine. He was unable to be at his father’s funeral nine years ago but sang his favourite song ‘My Way’ via Skype. Craig was conflicted about whether he blamed his father for everything, but he realised without him he wouldn’t have run ‘away to the circus’ and become who he is today. As a result, he can forgive but not forget. Craig sang ‘My Way’ against pictures of his father throughout his life.
After some royal name-dropping there was Craig’s encore of ‘This is My Life’/‘This is Me’ (The Greatest Showman) in the style of Shirley Bassey and finally his recitation of his words to Chris McCausland before the final of Strictly 2024 was an odd ending.
There were more anecdotes and less singing than I expected from the title of the show and it was definitely not a Strictly-themed one like those which have so recently been touring. Enjoyable nonetheless, even if there was an intimate cabaret-style feeling to it and it would have been better advertised simply as ‘An Evening with Craig Revel Horwood’.
Jim Pritchard
For more about Craig Revel Horwood click here.