Don Black: From The Heart

After years of promising himself he would one day write a show of entirely new songs, Don Black has finally done it. This month , the Oscar and multi-award-winning lyricist makes a highly anticipated return to the West End with the premiere of From The Heart – a deeply personal celebration of the cabaret scene he has always admired. That Don Black has written a new show is music to fans’ ears, but it’s more significant than because the show features songs he promised his beloved late wife Shirley, and more recently sons Grant and Clive, that he would write.

Shirley, who died in 2018, was his greatest supporter, and there is little doubt she would have loved this show. Don doesn’t officially call it a dedication, but the wistful way he says, “If only she was here to hear it,” makes it clear that From The Heart carries her presence.

At the Fortune Theatre for two nights only, the show is Don’s tribute to the intimate New York off-Broadway revues that inspired him that he never missed when he was in town. “I’d go to those shows and be transfixed,” he recalls. “Surprise guests would turn up — Shirley MacLaine, Liza Minnelli — and you felt like the songs were written just for you. That’s the atmosphere I wanted to capture.”

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The cast is nothing short of stellar. Caroline O’Connor — a favourite of Stephen Sondheim — is flying in from Australia, not long after her acclaimed run as Dolly in Hello Dolly! in Paris. She joins Sydnie Christmas, Preeya Kalidas, and Clive Rowe who played Nicely-Nicely Johnson in the National Theatre’s celebrated 1996 revival of Guys and Dolls.

At Don’s home in west London, the piano has been played by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Quincy Jones. Don doesn’t really play, but allowed my daughter Madison to, which meant she got to perform You Love Who You Love from Bonnie and Clyde for the man who wrote it. It was a moment to bank and From The Heart promises many more like that.

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What makes this production unique is that, for once, Don is not revisiting his incomparable back catalogue. Every number is new — songs he has carried with him for years. “No great cabaret song leaves anyone untouched,” he says and then lists an auspicious list of collaborators who have worked with him on the new songs such as Gary Barlow, EGOT winner Alan Menken as well as David Arnold who was musical director for London Olympics 2012, Mike Batt and Natasha Bedingfield.

The joy of Don is that he always acts as though he is just one of the band and for all the A list company he keeps, he has remained the Hackney lad who left school at 15 to work as an office boy at a music publisher. As a song-plugger, he persuaded dance bands and singers to try new material and from that went on to write some of the most famous songs of the last half-century. Born Free won him an Academy Award and he is forever tied to the Bond themes – Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever and The Man With the Golden Gun.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don in 1979, more recently and (bottom) with Quincy Jones, who died in November 2024Collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michel Legrand and others produced hits such as Aspects of Love and Tell Me on a Sunday, and he also wrote with John Barry, Quincy Jones who played that piano and was intrinsic to the on going success of Lulu, Shirley Bassey and with Henry Mancini – even Michael Jackson – on the song Ben.

Always the quiet man behind the words, more interested in how a lyric touches an audience than in the awards on his shelves. “The song should do the talking,” he often says. From The Heart may be 40 years in the making, but it feels like the show Don Black was always destined to write: a love letter to cabaret, to storytelling, to family and to the late Shirley — who, without question, would have been in the front row.

From The Heart is at Fortune Theatre on 26 October and 2 November including a matinee. atgtickets.com