By Marilyn Lester***It’s been too long since English chanteuse-comedian Melinda Hughes performed one of her magnificent cabaret acts in New York. Her last appearance, pandemic notwithstanding, was at the late Metropolitan Room in Janua
ry 2017. Back on these shores at long last, at Don’t Tell Mama, with familiar cohorts musical director/pianist David Shenton (who makes a wonderful foil from time to time) and bassist Mark Wade (a stalwart musical anchor), Hughes new show Hitched delivered prime hilarity.
Hughes writes her own material and tunes (words and music) and as the title of the show might suggest, this outing was in praise of her newly-minted marriage (her first, and age fifty yet). Around that she delivered her sharp wit and canny satire (the Brits as a rule are exceedingly good at this) on a variety of subjects au current. Her standup is animated, perfectly timed and sharp as tacks. In her songs she drew on sources such as Noël Coward and Gilbert and Sullivan in clever riffs, with charming melodies, and carrying just the right amount of acid wit. Hughes also has a swell voice!
Although she’d been with her French BF for 12 years before the nuptials, her mother, according to Hughes, held little hope for the union, recounted in “I Give It a Year.” The rather ironic circumstance of the wedding is that is occurre
d on the weekend of King Charles III’s coronation. The big royal to-do in London would have been enough to complicate matters without the involved logistics of getting a wedding together on top of that. In Hughe’s case, preparations included averting not only the threat of rain (with prayer and supplication), but transporting to London a very special automobile (“Let’s Keep It Simple”): Hughes’ father was Ken Hughes, writer-director of the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, in which the magic vehicle in question was the big star—moreso than human actors Dick Van Dyke and Sally Ann Howes. Yet, as we learned in song, the wedding almost didn’t happen owing to a trip to Argentina, the tango and the enchantment that turned an off-putting Argentine trucker into a Don Juan of tango on the dance floor. Indeed the tango can do things like that.
As a political satirist, how could Hughes avoid our own 45th president (with a reference to the recent orange cloud that descended on NYC courtesy of the Canadian wildfires) and his “buffoon” counterpart in Britain. A cancel-culture song made sure just about everyone and everything should be eliminated. As 
a Tweeting “Karen,” Hughes was sweetness and light in conversation, but as she glanced at her cell phone and noticed an opportunity to Tweet, she transformed into a raging potty-mouthed ultra-rightwing virago. The well-known “special relationship” between the US and the UK inevitably led to one of her comparison songs, this one about the differences in lexicon, such as nappies vs diapers, biscuits vs cookies, snog vs make out and Fox News vs garbage. There was also commentary on Brexit, which gave way to the failings of a certain generation and “Goodbye Baby Boomers.”
Hughes fans on the other side of the pond familiar with her work know her also to be a specialist in the songs of the Weimar era, especially those of Mischa Spoliansky, the Russian- Jewish musician-composer who was forced to flee the Nazi regime and ended his days in England. She also has a “side hustle” as a bona fide opera singer. As is her custom in her cabaret acts, her encore demonstrates that classical training, in this case a spoof of TV talent shows with all the tropes and a perfect imitation of Celine Dion. There’s no question that Melinda Hughes is a first-place, first-rate winner. Please come back to us sooner than 5+ years!
