I'd say this definitely fits the criteria of "collectors/fans only", since I can't really recommend the album to anyone who wasn't already a huge Wyatt fan anyone else is better experiencing the music here in the studio album renditions. The main problem with the album is the sound quality, which is really rather poor even for the era - and the mix isn't great either, so the joyous cover version of I'm a Believer that ends the album is rather murky and Ivor Cutler's poetry readings are almost completely swamped - a crying shame. Naturally, material from Rock Bottom is present in spades, and whilst Wyatt and his backing musicians make a decent go of rearranging those strange studio nuggets into something resembling a tune a conventional band lineup could play, the process means that some of them lose their magic (though the version of Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road here is decent). Wyatt is clearly in high spirits during the recording, opening the gig with a shambolic (and I suspect deliberately shoddy) runthrough of Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening before getting to the meat of the matter. It is a shame, therefore, that I can't recommend it as heartily as I would like to. Robert Wyatt has only rarely given live performances since the launch of his solo career, so Theatre Royal Drury Lane is one of the few live albums we're ever likely to see from him. The approach is unconventional, but the result is beautiful chamber jazz. Wyatt's version of "What a Wonderful World" is a very nice surprise too. The music is dreamy, restrained, reflective, lush, spiced in the right places with Atzmon's Middle Eastern accents. Wyatt sings on 9 tracks and whistles on one, Atzmon brings the Middle-Eastern flavours on most of the tracks on one or more of soprano and alto sax, clarinet, bass clarinet and accordion. The 11 tracks include seven jazz standards(Laura, In a Sentimental Mood,What a Wonderful World), two originals(The Ghosts Within being the best IMHO) and two jazzy reworkings of Wyatt originals(Maryan, At last I am free). Atzmon has previously played on Wyatt's albums and collaborated with Stephen on Gilad With Strings, a project honouring Charlie Parker's dalliance with classical orchestration. `I'm not a jazz musician,' said Robert Wyatt once, `but it's the fountain from which I drink, so I piss some of it out in my records.' Well, I can say he p.ed quite a lot of it in this album in which he collaborates with saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, violinist Ros Stephen, and Stephen's Sigamos String Quartet. I was never a Robert Wyatt fan and wasn't 'exposed' too much ( I actually tried a couple of his albums and dropped them) to his music, which in this case may be an advantage because I had no big expectations of this album.
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