David Goldthorpe’s Chet Baker, Like Someone in Love, in the St James Theatre cabaret series is best described not as a play, nor as a concert, but rather an occasion. 

The first floor gallery is set about with candlelit dinner tables and the doors open an hour and a half early to allow patrons the full wining and dining jazz experience. Red and white full-length curtains effectively contain the space, providing an ideal backdrop to the stage while including the audience in the performance area.

We are lulled and at home as the piece opens with the relaxed musicians taking their places.

Goldthorpe delivers an energetic performance as the beatific Chet Baker the musician believed himself to be. Eager and friendly, Goldthorpe is an affable presence onstage, however, as in his recent role as Charlie Brown at BATS Theatre, he struggles to hit moments of truth in his spoken delivery. This results in an aura of exposition in much of his acting – of course, in a biographical solo show much of it IS exposition, but it does not need to seem so.

Moments when Goldthorpe takes on other characters are refreshing as they offer a change in his pattern of delivery.

Goldthorpe’s voice, however, is superb –and one cannot help but be impressed by an actor who learns to play the trumpet in order to play Chet Baker! Complemented assuredly by musical director Tim Solly on piano, Mostyn Cole on bass and Andy Hoy on drums, he becomes ever more charming as a singer and the audience are indulged without feeling played.

Director David Lawrence makes excellent thematic use of songs to represent and underline happenings or details in this representation of the life of Chet Baker. 

It is inevitable in biography, particularly that staged in a solo show, that elements will be left out and that this will potentially be frustrating to some of the audience. In a script that intends “to present Chet’s life plain and simple, without passing judgment… or censoring the nasty bits” (director’s note), the team has intentionally avoided the mystique of Baker’s death and most of the nastier aspects of his life.

My first impression was to dismiss this collaboration as having little narrative thread, but on further reflection, I realised that the narrative functioned much like a jazz song – a distinctive refrain repeated and quasi-repeated, creating a layered whole that was subtle and surprisingly effective.

A simple set of an unmade bed and a table laden with drug paraphernalia combine well with Marcus McShane’s lighting, which evokes the change between the performative and the expositionary very well. A slight rise in volume on Goldthorpe’s microphone would have benefited the songs, but only by bringing them up from very good.

A most enjoyable occasion. 
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I arrive to behold a smoky blue set, immortal jazz legend Chet Baker slouched over his trumpet on his stool upstage right,  band stage left, tatty unclothed single bed and coffee table centre stage, for more private moments. 

Not a dry chronology, nor intended as an impersonation as such; although I’m not familiar with Chet Baker the person, the gentle, understated characterisation of David Goldthorpe seems plausible enough, engaging certainly. 

Goldthorpe’s script begins Baker’s story near the end of his life, quickly arriving at his mysterious death before taking us back to where it all began and how his journey played out. In general we are privy to the bleaker, troubled times peppered with passing nods to various highlights… Baker’s glory days are fairly glossed over in favour of the gritty degradation of his human reality, though falling short of any truly disturbing, visceral effect.

It seems we are witnessing the snappy ghost of young Chet, in his own Dorian Gray complex image, speaking to us from beyond the grave. Marcus McShane’s  lighting design, placing a subtle glow on the protagonist’s figure, enhances that impression.

The exemplary backup jazz band are Nick Jones at piano, Russell McNaughton bass and Jono Sawyer on the drums. Have casual-smarts, will travel – as they have to the south and now up to here, from Wellington.

Through sombre strains and swinging rhythms, under Tim Solly’s musical direction and arrangements they are perfect support to Goldthorpe’s sublime horn and angelic vocals – which may be just slightly deeper and a whisper less silky than the real Chet’s, however the sentimental character is spot on.

Director David Lawrence declares they are simply playing with known facts, without passing judgement or delivering any moral opinion.  This allows any questions the freedom to be asked, about for instance the seemingly inevitable link between narcotics and great music, or whether the way a man lived his life ought to influence our appreciation of their art.

The harsh reality of the substance-driven second half of Baker’s life in a way lends more sense to the music, whether or not it needs it.   Like Someone In Love is a not atypical inglorious jazz junkie tale and, when the band plays the iconic reinvented show tunes synonymous with the name of Chet Baker, it’s almost like a fully mounted economy-sized single serving Broadway musical.

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The atmosphere is smoky and the lights are dim and blue. There are musical instruments, including a trumpet, on a cheap-looking bed, and there’s a little table supporting various items that can be injected, ingested or smoked. So it can only be about jazz.

David Goldthorpe "is" Chet Baker, who died, via an Amsterdam window, in 1988. Supposedly 58, he looks no more than half that age, but we come to understand that that’s how Baker perceived himself.

Goldthorpe also has an exceptionally pleasant singing voice, and if the programme hadn’t informed us that he learned to play the trumpet especially for the role of Chet, I would not have guessed.

Baker comes across as a not particularly sympathetic character: a negligent (several times) husband, father and son, given to self-pity rather than introspection, bravado, rather than bravery.

But the story of his rise to fame and his descent into drug-fuelled paranoia, researched and written by Goldthorpe and put together with director David Lawrence, is interesting.

The narration is interspersed with jazz standards such as My Funny Valentine, Look for the Silver Lining and Everything happens to Me.

Goldthorpe’s talent is complemented by Tim Solly on piano, Craig Sinclair on bass, and Paul McLennan-Kissel on drums and the fine music contrasts with the character’s wildness.

The Fortune Studio was packed last night and the audience was particularly appreciative of the short, supernumerary jazz performances when the one-hour play as such was over.

Jazz fans and others have until Saturday to enjoy the production.

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…At Blondini’s … David Goldthorpe’s solo act about Chet Baker, Like Someone In Love, is seeing a return season after last years Fringe Festival – and deservedly so. With smooth jazz sounds and a crystal chandelier hanging above us, this show does for theatre what velvet does for underpants; and if you haven’t tried velvet underwear, I suggest you do so soon.

In seriousness, the show’s low-key set design was nicely matched by Marcus McShane’s lighting plot, creating a hazy, ambient mood which gave the play a nice, slightly surreal, sensibility, as though we were watching a memory or a ghost.

Goldthorpe looks great on stage, his characterisation is engaging and his trumpet playing and vocals are formidable.

The accompanying band, consisting of Tim Solly, Mostyn Cole and Richard Wise, add a touch of finesse to the finished product which makes for a superb production.

To summarise – Wellington’s theatre sector impresses yet again!

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Just when it seemed that the best of this year’s Fringe Festival had been and gone a production emerges that epitomises what so many before have lacked. David Goldthorpe’s solo performance is based on the life and times of legendary jazz musician Chet Baker – Like Someone in Love. 

Like so many artists born with an innate ability to create music, Baker’s personnel life of sex, booze and drugs was the antithesis of his laid back crooning style of jazz that made him so famous.  It is said that in his later years when he looked like a "walking corpse", Baker would look at himself in the mirror seeing himself as young, beautiful and angelic, which is exactly what David Goldthorpe is (a Dan Carter of the theatre) and which he uses as his starting point for his show.

He then proceeds to take the audience through the highs and lows of Baker’s life, interspersing the dialogue with expertly arranged Baker classics under the musical direction of Tim Solly.  This is no impersonation of Baker or a boring chronology of his life but an exceptionally well researched and written piece, professionally put together by Goldthorpe and director David Lawrence. 

And in contrast to the beautifully melodic music the dialogue is raw and hard nosed. Goldthorpe is not frightened to show the sorrowing pain of Baker’s life that made him as infamous as his music made him famous. This is a show for theatre goers as well as lovers of jazz and one that deserves a repeat season.

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That Like Someone In Love is expressed entirely from the subjective viewpoint of its subject, Chet Baker, is both its limitation and its strength. As a bio-play, it leaves lots out – not least, the manner of his death (falling from a hotel window in Amsterdam in 1988, aged 58). As a portrait of self-delusion, however, it demands we engage with our critical faculties intact.

Singer/actor/trumpet player David Goldthorpe and director David Lawrence – backed by a superb jazz trio: Tim Solly (piano), Mostyn Cole (bass), Richard Wise (drums) – have crafted a simple yet classy show that might well mesmerise us with cool jazz if it did not also challenge us with flashes of fact that are hard to ignore.

As soft sounds flow from Goldthorpe’s perpetually young Chet – his jazz trumpet and equally smooth voice, both singing and talking – the blissed-out dimension of drug addiction is clearly evoked. The title song itself is offered as an ode to heroin. ‘She’s Not For Me’, My Sunny Valentine’, ‘The Touch of Your Lips on Mine’ and ‘look For the Silver Lining’ are judiciously placed to punctuate and illuminate the unfolding story.

There are moments of self pity, anger and paranoia but mostly he’s cruising on a plane high above reality. It’s the passing parade of women’s names and the children he ‘fathered’ with them that jolt us into realising his claim – shouted at an arresting officer – that he’s hurting nobody else is deeply deluded. In short, he’s a self-serving arsehole.

What’s missing from this brief trip through subjective experience is the hanging out phase of addiction, and the ruthlessly desperate need to find the money to feed his habit. That he had the talent to do so (playing live gigs in Europe and recording constantly: his discography is vast) without, as far as I know, ripping off friends and colleagues was both his fortune and misfortune (in that such moral imperatives can be a catalyst in motivating addicts to liberate themselves from oppression).

Baker, by this account, never saw himself as the author of his own degradation. His lack of invincibility is well captured in the moment when his trumpet produces no melodic sound, just a rasp of empty air. This could be a metaphor for his death or a hint at what might have motivated his suicide, if that’s what it was.

Which ever way you look at it, Like Someone In Love is well worth tuning into because it resonates well beyond itself.
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