It’s apt that “The Songs I Love So Well” begins with that old chestnut “Danny Boy.” This show starring venerable Irish musician Phil Coulter is suffused with such a warm glow of nostalgia that even non-Irish audience members will be fondly remembering their days growing up on the Emerald Isle.
After a short introductory video featuring glowing testimonials from such stars as Sinead O’Connor, Billy Connolly, Van Morrison and Liam Neeson, Coulter is grandly introduced as “Ireland’s Ambassador of Music.”
The moniker seems appropriate, as the 70-year-old star boasts an impressive résumé as a performer, producer, songwriter and arranger. He’s written hit songs for artists ranging from Elvis Presley to the Bay City Rollers, and for a while his instrumental album “Sea of Tranquility” was Ireland’s second-biggest-seller ever, only behind one featuring Pope John Paul II.
His current show offers his fans the rare opportunity to see him in intimate circumstances.
“I’ve played Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, and I finally made it to the Irish Rep,” he joked.
Performing on a set featuring a large Christmas tree and a backdrop re-creating the stained glass window of the Guildhall in his hometown of Derry in Northern Ireland, the performer offered a mixture of original compositions, classic folk songs and instrumentals. The last were often accompanied by video close-ups of his hands tickling the ivories projected on a large screen.
With the exception of the rollicking “Coultergeist,” for which the theater’s lights were amusingly flashed on and off, the piano numbers bordered on New Age-y. Far more effective were such personal songs as “The Old Man,” a tribute to his father, and “Scorn Not His Simplicity,” inspired by his son with Down syndrome. He movingly recited such poems as “The Man From God Knows Where” and “An Irish Christmas” while comic relief was provided in the form of an enthusiastic tribute to Jimmy Durante.
He brought out his wife (and mother of his six children), singer Geraldine Branagan, who performed affecting versions of the folk song “The Water Is Wide” and the Christmas standard “Silent Night,” delivered in both English and Gaelic (“Oíche Chiúin”).
“I think you may have just witnessed my retirement package,” Coulter said with a smile when his wife left the stage.
He saved his most popular song for the finale: “The Town I Loved So Well,” inspired by his hometown plagued for years by the Troubles. The barbed wire hanging on the theater’s walls provided a haunting visual to go with the show’s sorrowful lyrics.