Broadway diva arrives without a voice

What happens when you show up but your voice doesn't? That scenario - any performer's worst nightmare - was borne out Sunday night at the New Players Theatre, where Broadway star Stephanie J Block cancelled the second of two back-to-back concert performances with 15 minutes to go before her 8.30 pm set was due to start.

That will have come as major bad news for Block's rabid fanbase as befits a Broadway alumna of the musicals The Boy from Oz, Nine to Five, and The Pirate Queen who is nonetheless best-known for appearing on Broadway and on tour in America as the green-skinned Elphaba in the phenomenon that is Wicked - a credit that explains Block's largely female (and worshipful) public.

Word has it that Block's opening 6 pm show was pretty sensational: my colleague on theartsdesk Edward Seckerson reported being "knocked out" by it. So what went wrong? One explanation is that too much ambient dry ice was doing in her voice, which in turns begs the question: why would any cabaret artiste run that sort of risk? (Translation: turn the smoke machine off.) At least my guest and I had merely travelled by tube from various corners of London for the event; there were reports of others who had flown over from the Continent. Oh well, the show must go on. Or, as sometimes happens in showbiz, unless it doesn't.