Fringe: Adventures of Straker

theSpace @ Niddry St

Simply put, the collaborative combination of a decorated director, a maestro of classics, and a virtuoso of musical theatre, this most certainly is a winner! 

As a seasoned performer, Peter Straker continues to dazzle his audience in this masterful showpiece. Together with his accomplice, world renowned classical pianist, Gabriele Baldocci, he reminisces with a compilation of his musical show- stoppers together with a few favourites he “wasn’t asked to sing”!  From ‘Cabaret’ to ‘The Wiz’, ‘Rent’ to ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘The Harder They Come’ to ‘Hamilton’ and ‘Hot Stuff’, ‘Oliver’ to ‘Jackie’ and ‘Tommy’ to ‘Hair’, Straker and his multi-award winning director, Kerry Kyriacos Michael, have put together a musical ensemble for all to enjoy. 

After spending several decades in musical theatre, you’d expect any distinguished performer to be slowing down. Well, expect the unexpected!  Straker has extraordinary energy. His pleasingly ranged vocals are in fine tune, as is his honed ability to control his powerful pipes.  With the audience in the palm of his hand, this 50 minutes of melodic fun, felt like it was over before it had begun. 

Straker’s impressive career in music, film and theatre spans over many decades. Jamaican born, he burst on to the London theatre scene during the latter part of the 1960’s as the charismatic Hud in the pioneering musical ‘Hair’. From there, his recording career with Polydor, RCA Victor and Pye Records, steadily progressed, culminating with a succession of singles, and an album produced by Howard and Blaikley, entitled ‘Private Parts’. Following his first album Straker toured, during which time he met the illustriously flamboyant Freddy Mercury. Their friendship and musical collaborations blossomed, with Freddy and his acclaimed producer, Roy Thomas Baker, co-producing Straker’s second, aptly titled, album, ‘This One’s on Me’.  He released two further albums, ‘Challenging’ produced by Tim Friese-Green, and ‘Real Natural Man’, a collaboration with Mike Allison that was co-produced by Reinhold Mack (Queen) and released by Elton John’s Rocket Records.  

Having already bagged a key role in Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin’s, 1971 acclaimed LGBT classic ‘Girl Stroke Boy’, along with several recording and tour credits, his attention turned to both classical and musical theatre, in the former of which he played Julius Caesar at Bristol’s Old Vic and Lucio in ‘Measure for  Measure’ at London’s National Theatre.  His acting roles have also seen him appear in numerous television productions.   

His applauded talents have over several decades been consistently snapped up by West End musical directors, where he’s been cast in shows including Pete Townsend’s ‘Tommy’, Ken Hill’s ‘Phantom of the Opera’, ‘Hot Stuff’, ‘Blues in the Night’, ‘The Rocky Horror Show’, ‘The Rat Pack’ and ‘The Wiz’.          

In 2020 Cherry Red Records, remastered and released a 3-CD box-set of his albums. Later that year he released his revamped ‘Late Night Taxi Dancer 2020’, “a melodic, clubby, electro synth-pop” track, celebrating his “association with Erasure’s lead singer in his acclaimed ‘Andy Bell is Torsten’ theatre-pop side-project.”   

Straker is a musical virtuoso and master entertainer whose abilities continue to leave his audiences spellbound. 

If you didn’t catch Straker at the Edinburgh Fringe, click here to find out where you can!