I must admit that walking into this show, I was quite surprised to notice that my three friends and I pushed the average age down by about ten years. I suppose this does make sense, seeing as the show first debuted in film format 63 years ago, making it definitely appeal to a certain demographic. As I was watching the show, however, something struck me. Although definitely evocative of a time and a place (1920sHollywoodatthemomentmovies becametalkies) it did not feel at all ‘old’ – it felt vibrant, energetic, and decidedly vital.
The songs’ performance went well beyond the usual guaranteed fun of American superficiality. The live orchestra was more than a match both for the smoothness of the melodrama and the vigour of the tap-dancing crowd. The immediacy of the live orchestra really made for an unmatchable experience, no matter how much you liked the film.
Similarly, the acting was always enticing and often breathtaking, accentuating
the strengths of the musical. Indeed,each of the four leads, James Hyde as Don, Niall Docherty as Cosmo, Annabel Reed as Lina and Kathy Peacock as Kathy provided a different facet to the musical, each captivating the audience in a unique way. Cosmo and Lina were, no doubt about it, hilarious, both as characters in their own right, but also as brilliant counterpoints to Don and Kathy’s burgeoning love interest.
This love was played with suitable affection, particularly strong in ‘Would You?’, the leitmotif of their developing love. Lots of self-referential humour was wrung from the script, with the set-up and finale as springboards for making the musical framed as what might be called a ‘meta-musical’. All this was aided by brilliantly comic scenes owing to a great cast of support actors.
Standing out among them were Don’s diction tutor (Xavier Peer) and Lina’s close pal who, it seems, not-so-secretly despises her. Panache with a grin accompanied the entire evening, putting across an energy which was tangible and which practically forced the audience into grinning themselves – for the entire show.
And yet director Naomi Morris Omori never lost sight of coherence, even to the smallest details: real rain on stage, flashing period costumes, lighting, and of course the music summed to create a fantastic backdrop to the plot. So my friends and I were sitting there, surrounded by people compelled to tapping along with the songs – even those who had to adjust their hearing aids for it. And they had good reason to do so.
