Mark Janicello

This was a slightly confusing show to begin with which hit its stride in the second half and turned out to be really very good indeed. Mark Janicello was billed as an Elvis 'interpreter' rather than an 'impersonator'. Throughout the show he sang to prerecorded backing recordings interspersed with anecdotes about his career and especially the parts of it which centered on playing Elvis in various musicals and working closely with a songwriter who had more songs recorded by Elvis than any other composer. He didn't to try to sing like Elvis but in a certain part of his range he naturally sounded similar. He has a classically trained operatic voice than can do far more than Elvis was ever capable of and was very personable and worked the audience well. Things became far more interesting in the second half when he made use of those operatic vocal chops. Without spoiling the anecdotes of how he went from performing opera to starring in Elvis stage musicals, at one point he sang a great version of 'O Sole Mio/ It's Now Or Never' channeling both Elvis and Pavarotti and switching effortlessly between the two . The tales of how Elvis came to feature so heavily in his career were fascinating and when he brought more of his operatic voice to bear on big Elvis ballads he sounded superb. There's a lot more to Janicello than Elvis connections and he has an extraordinary career which is fascinating in its own right.