He's eye candy for sure, but Julian Ovenden is sweet on the ears too, with a striking, lush tenor that wraps around the multifarious melodies and strikes the heart with honest conviction. With a career that includes Broadway and the West End, television, and recently cabaret, he returned to the Metropolitan Room for a second appearance this year, delivering a new program about traveling, home, and love, as seen through A Wand'ring Minstrel's Eye.

From the piano bench, he began with the vibrant chords of, "Let's Face the Music and Dance," and then moved in front of the piano to continue the song with a cosmopolitan savoir-faire, backed by a rhythm trio of guitar, bass and drums and pianist. His phrasing intrigues, languorously drawing out the line, "Soon, we'll be without the moon…" before reclaiming the Latin beat.

Ovenden, trained in London as singer and actor, is totally at home on the intimate cabaret stage. His patter is easy and select. He brings a trained theatre eye to unearth the song's character, what is it about and what it means to him. There is not one throwaway tune in his eclectic range of songs, nor any meandering chat. Most tunes were not repeats from his debut show last January, but one returnee was "Slow Boat to China," Ovenden's eyes scanning the audience and sending out of the longing interpretation driving the lyric. The audience sailed on his boat all the way to Shanghai.

Ovenden has an affinity for the songs of Ivor Novello and combined, "Fly Home Little Heart" with the Beatles' "Blackbird," two songs uniquely haunting and compelling. He also paired decades and styles with Rodgers and Hart's, "Where or When," followed by Rufus Wainwright's "Natasha." A two-song salute to Mario Lanza included a sweetly subtle, "Be My Love" before Ovenden revealed his firm tenor chops with "Serenata." Noel Coward's, "I Travel Alone" was urbane yet poignant, and later, Ovenden told of a meeting he had with the Queen Mother when she was 99. After he fixed her a cocktail, she requested he sing Coward's patter song, "Why Can't I?"

Poised and amiable, Julian Ovendon can persuasively turn on a dime from soulful to swing, from a full-throated "Who Can I Turn To" to a punchy, "Dance, Little Lady," millennium- style. Don't miss this versatile and captivating minstrel.

Julian Ovenden brings his new show, A Wand'ring Minstrel's Eye, to The Metropolitan Room on December 10 and December 17, 2007.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
December 10, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org