Esther Hannaford’s celebration concert of Carole King’s Tapestry album not So Far Away By Ruth O’Brien Esther Hannaford is one of Australia’s leading musical theatre performers. The winner of two Helpmann Awards - one for her performance in Hairspray (2011) and most recently for Best Female Actor in Beautiful (2018) - is coming to Canberra to perform the songs of Carole King’s best-selling album, Tapestry. Released in 1971, this four-time Grammy Award-winning album placed #25 in Rolling Stones 500 greatest albums of all time. Now, if you’re thinking, “who’s Carole King?” or “I don’t know any Carole King songs”, chances are you know more than you realise. In fact, on Tapestry alone, there are many recognisable songs including You’ve Got A Friend, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman and I Feel The Earth Move. And the brilliance of these songs is that even if you haven’t heard them before, they’re so catchy and familiar that you’ll likely enjoy them just as much as veteran Carole King fans. Hannaford knows all of these songs particularly well after playing the woman herself in the Australian tour of the aforementioned musical, Beautiful - The Carole King Musical, in 2017-2018. For Hannaford, it’ll be a new experience singing the songs as she’ll be singing them as Esther, not Carole.
PAGE 30
“It’s going to be good because I’ll be in the same position as the audience, admiring these songs,” she says. Hannaford has a few favourites from the Tapestry collection. The first is It’s Too Late and So Far Away. Another one, that wasn’t featured in the Carole King musical, is Way Over Yonder. “I find it quite challenging to sing, it’s a new one [for me].” Hannaford talks about “getting vocally fit” for these performances as, like for many people in the performing arts, there’s not been a great deal of work these last 12 months. “It’ll probably be quite emotional… This will be the first performance with a live audience [since the pandemic hit].” And for audience members, this may well be the first live show attended in 12-months also. Mix all that with the beautifully nostalgic musical masterpiece that is Tapestry and there’s likely not a dry eye to be had along this tour around the country throughout April-May. From the year that we’ve all had, if you wanna come and feel some emotion, this is the show for just that. “We’re going to play Tapestry from beginning to end, to honour what it is. And then we’ll do some of the other classics that people might wanna hear and we’ll do them in a fun way.” Regardless of whether you’re a die-hard King worshipper or merely a curious subject, this show is shaping up to be a beautiful and wholesome experience and not-to-be-missed. Tickets for this 50th Anniversary Concert of Carole King’s Tapestry, performed by Esther Hannaford, are on sale from The Canberra Theatre website - canberratheatrecentre.com.au . Dates are Saturday 8 May, 7:30pm and Sunday 9 May, 7pm (new show). For more info, visit the Canberra Theatre website or call 6275 2700
@bmamag Photo credit: Awais Butt
