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Review: Swing!

Middle-class suburban life is mocked in Lauren Bensted’s new musical, which explores anew the peculiarities of this section of culture. In any such satire a wide range of contemporary reference is essential to avoid the production becoming too narrow. Bensted achieves this with ease. Everyone is satirised.

 

Centred around the activities of Shafthead Lawn Tennis Club, the plot moves briskly, incorporating a number of twists. Bensted has gleefully embraced the melodramatic in writing SWING! and its energy makes it a great deal of fun. Willy Straddlebottom (Adam Grant) and Francesca del Lazula (Anna Byrne), who concoct a dark plan involving ‘grape rape’, are hilarious as the scheming villains, while Anna Mrowiec is marvellous as the incredibly neurotic Coaster Constance.

 

The teenage characters’ comic potential is perhaps not exploited to the full, but on the whole the action is well-balanced.
Variety is the key characteristic of this musical, which has a dynamic score and is excellently choreographed, shifting from moments involving the whole company to love-duets and scheming sequences.  These changes in tone are also reflected in the playful use of language: innuendo and wit are combined effectively in the lyrics and dialogue throughout the play, and the audience is left in no doubt that this is a musical for adults.

 

The absence of the sickly-sweet quality often associated with the form is undoubtedly due to the satirical nature of the content. And Bensted renders the hyperbolic nature of suburban existence ‘strangely magic and charming’ is reflected in the fact that while SWING! is consistently funny, it is never aggressive in its portrayal.
   

Four stars.

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