Rachel and me

Quadruple threat: Golden Globe winning composer/writer, dancer, singer and actress Rachel Bloom.

The Yiddish Vaudevillian with the Madeline Kahn charm and singing voice and the Mae West swagger opened her Radio City Music Hall set with a pun.

‘There’s a f**kton of people here. Are there any JEWS in the house?

“It’s so packed in here, we might have to start…

a NOSH pit.”

The crowd erupts.

It’s classic banter from an already-classic American, and the perfect place to begin my reflection on Rachel Bloom’s end-of-an-era New York City tour.

Bloom went to college here, and, it’s clear, sees it as a second home, but she is not an East Coaster. Or rather, not quite. Born in LA, enamoured of classic belters (of course the Streisand comparisons are inevitable,) she is definitely a Broadway baby. Her show is a unicorn - a musical dramedy - which was axed by its original network and gained a cult following after its saviour, the CW, stepped in. She quipped about Crazy Ex Girlfriend having the lowest ratings of any show on the CW, and joked that it was because the only people in the US who cared about theatre were “the ones in this room”.

But despite casting aspersions on the popularity of her show, and bemoaning the current unpopularity of the legitimate theatre, she managed to win herself a Golden Globe, and to sell out the 6000-seater.

The audience consisted of a lot of gay female couples, one of which carried out a proposal onstage - a beautiful moment which even made me tear up! At one point, Bloom asked for all the single people at the show to stand up and take a bow.

“Take a good look at the person next to you,” she said. ‘If any relationships begin tonight, I want to be the first to hear about it.”

Bloom, who has been married to the same man for five years, and with that same man for over a decade, then, gives hope to the least of us: “I reached the end goal!”

Others in the audience include reluctant boyfriends, middle-aged ladies with a buttload of cats, and cosplayers. It’s definitely that kind of crowd.

I spot some great costumes, including ‘sexy fashion cactus’ and the jumpsuits from ‘We’ll never have problems again.’

There is a costume and a Bloom song for every occasion. But I’ll get to that later.

It’s endgame for the Bloom-obsessed. We know that. The last season just ended, and, as Bloom reminds us, it’s near loaves and fishes-level miraculous that the show stayed on air for more than four years, despite the lowest ratings in CW history.

We are the ones the show stayed on air for. This rag-tag collection of misfits from countries as diverse as Finland and New Zealand who made the pilgrimage tonight to Bloomtown.

She opens with the TV show’s musical header and anthem, ‘West Covina’ - an homage to an early, less worldly incarnation of Rebecca Bunch. In the song the successful lawyer from NYC, a newly-minted partner as one of the most prestigious firms in the city, makes up her heart and mind to leave for the ‘shtetl’ of West Covina following a chance meeting with her ex from theatre camp:

‘To be clear, I didn't move here for Josh, I just needed a change

'Cause to move here for Josh, now that'd be strange

But don't get me wrong, if he asked for a date

I would totally be like, "That sounds great!"

Look everyone stop giving me the shakedown

I am not having a nervous…’

All the songs and lyrics bear repeated listening, with their twist-and-turn take on modern life, and the revelations they contain about our leading lady (and by extension, ourselves) belying their bouncy exterior.

Bloom, with co-writers Dolgen and Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne fame, pays homage to a huge cross section of styles and music from Judy Garland to the Beach Boys to Bruce Springsteen.

She promised us a raunchier show than the PG network airing afforded by the CW, and she delivers. Not to let one out of the bag, but her last stunt in the live show is a huge middle finger to the current establishment here in America - she asks for her assistant to blindfold her in-laws (‘my husband BEGGED me not to do this… but he married a free spirit!’) and steps behind a screen, removing her bra in readiness to perform ‘Heavy Boobs’, jumping up and down in time to the music, to great effect - before stepping out from behind the screen entirely. After name-checking Jeff Sessions and Kevin Spacey in the show, It’s another massive slap in the face (literally) to white men in power, and a timely statement about female bodily autonomy.

Listening through Bloom’s back catalogue is like taking out your favourite dresses from the past (something Bloom alludes to in the final season.) ‘What’ll it be?’ describes my experience growing up in a small town and always dreaming of something beyond:

‘Hey West Covina,

Why won’t you let me break free?

Am I doomed to stay here pouring my highschool friends beers

For the rest of eternity?

Hey West Covina,

Look what you’re doing to me.

Can’t you see, West Covina,

You’re killing me West Covina,

Last call West Covina.

What’ll it be?’

I have had Jewish heroes ever since I was a little girl - from Anne Frank to Irene Nemirovsky, Jewish role models helped me find my place and the courage to step out from the Iron Curtain of Waspish expectation into a world of expression. There is a lineage of superhero Hebrew ladies, who, it is somewhat comforting to know, are as tormented in their life-choices as us Goyische gals. In “Rebecca’s Reprise’, she sings about winning over the love of her father - eventually. In ‘The Darkness’, she personifies her depression, and speaks of the reasons why she seeks a make-believe world over the relentless, mirror-holding truth of reality:

“We met around the time I started first grade

Every summer after that we'd play solitaire in the shade

On prom night, he was the only boy I kissed

And when he'd visit my dorm, I'd remember how much I'd missed.”

Bloom thanked the audience for making themselves vulnerable. In one interview she said the Crazy Ex Girlfriend creators were always scared that the things they were writing about would only make sense to them. Turns out the show’s themes are universal. To the women in the audience holding out their prescription pill packets for her to sign. Or to anyone who ever experienced the fear of not being enough.

It’s far into the evening, as I line up outside the stage door with the other women, and we share umbrellas and sing in unison our favourite songs from the show, that I realise the people here all have something in common: none of us fit in. And Rachel is singing our song.

She looks terrified as she approaches the line of hungry fans, all anxious for even a brief encounter with their ambassador. To the extent I get the feeling the confident, mouthy sexpot thing is all an act...

Rachel Bloom. Observer of the human condition. Vaudevillian tap-dancer. Gifted actress. Drama queen. Charisma machine. Master of disguise. And bearer of heavy boobs.

She is each of these things. Yet always, inherently, herself.