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“I’m, err, gonna speak here because on the album Judy speaks here,” mutters Rufus Wainwright nervously, three songs into the opening night of his portrayal of Judy Garland’s infamous performance at Carnegie Hall in 1961. Met by a warm comfort blanket of applause from the audience, he goes on to nervously explain his “big Judy Garland story”. It’s about, perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, the impact that her acclaimed appearance in The Wizard of Oz had on a young, camp Wainwright. Although lusciously entertaining, it’s the words that the tale, which involves dressing up and “melting” into his mothers clothes, ends with which are most poignant: “life’s great.”

Life couldn’t have been anything but “great” if Rufus Wainwright was to attempt reviving Garland’s performance in New York. Described as one of the greatest nights in show business history, it was, and still is a contemporary modern masterpiece that when released as a 2-Record topped America’s Billboard chart and didn’t fall from grace for thirteen weeks. You could ask then why no one has attempted to restore it before Wainwright – surely the nostalgia alone would sell copies? Well the answer in short is that there have been few who could do Garland – an insecure artiste – as much justice as Wainwright – an equally as insecure singer songwriter.

‘Rufus Does Judy’ is taken from the first of Wainwright’s two night stint at Carnegie Hall in June 2006 and is, in every sense, a recreation of Garland’s masterpiece. Backed by a 36-piece Orchestra, Wainwright gradually reignites the razzamatazz that Garland so beautifully crafted, and single-handedly created, throughout the course of her career. From the tongue rolled “rrr’s” which open ‘Putting On The Ritz’ to the way his baritone voice plummets to aggressive depths during ‘Rock-A-By Your Baby With A Dixie Melody’, Wainwright effortlessly lives up to person he once described himself as: “The male Judy Garland.”

It’s a description he only continues to settle into as the performance develops as well. A failed start to the song ‘Just You, Just Me’, after which Wainwright apologetically describes himself as “just a songwriter”, turns into a suspiciously pre-orchestrated one by the time the audience have returned for the second half. “Just a little bit faster,” he says, sounding truly in command of the band behind him as they’re asked to re-start, ‘Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart’. By this point Wainwright is flying through Garland’s set list - which includes the fabulous classics ‘Swanee’ and ‘Chicago’ - much to the rapturous appreciation of the audience who respond as though they’ve been taken back to 1961.

The songs messages of love, hopes and dreams and family still resonate in society nearly fifty years on – which is evidence, perhaps, of how Wainwright has so easily been able to take his Garland recreation to theatres in London, Paris and Los Angeles since his New York performances. The latter sentiment, family, is particularly poignant. One thing ‘Judy’ didn’t have at her side was family during her performance at Carnegie Hall. Affectionately, Wainwright turns his re-enactment into a family affair with the help of his sister, Martha – who sings ‘Stormy Weather’ – and his mother Kate McGarrigle, who joins him during ‘Over The Rainbow’, which Wainwright jokes was used to “sober up the adults” who had overstayed their welcome at family dinner parties. While it’s the only time that Wainwright’s re-enactment differs from the manuscript it’s taken from, one can hardly blame him for involving as many people as possible in the spectacle. 

It’s hard to imagine that when Judy Garland stepped off the stage at Carnegie Hall she thought anyone would try to re-create her masterpiece. Yet, throughout ‘Rufus Does Judy’, Wainwright sounds like her natural heir. While Garland’s performance came in the latter portion of her lifetime, one feels that her male incumbent has got a few more years left to steal the spotlight completely for himself.