Mandy Patinkin: Oscar & Steve

In what is still a predominantly female industry, the actor Mandy Patinkin (best known as Dr Jeffrey Geiger in Chicago Hope) is also developing an intriguing new career in solo cabaret, one he brings to the Almeida Theatre in Islington, north London, this April.
 
His last album was Mandy Patinkin – By Special Arrangement, a Broadway sellout for months and less a solo show than a concert of some of his favourite songs. His current concert follows the lyrical lines of Oscar Hammerstein II and his spiritual son, Stephen Sondheim, who once noted an essential difference between them. ‘Oscar’, he said, ‘really believed there was a bright golden haze on the meadow. I never could.’ Nevertheless, by setting their songs side by side Patinkin brilliantly establishes the umbilical link between the two.