(seen at the afternoon performance on 9th July 2023)
The Ian Dury musical “Apples” has a song celebrating Graham Greene as an English institution. Having giving up on “Brighton Rock” after three chapters (and a minty suck – enough, editor) the monkey disagreed...
Christopher Hampton and Don Black’s book for this show might just have changed its mind. They have created an adaption which, once past the too conventionally “musical theatre” opening scene, becomes engrossing and surprising for those like the monkey totally unfamiliar with the novel or famous film adaptation.
Entering the theatre down a cobbled and ruined Viennese street, to find an auditorium half full of rubble (a “Cats” revival here must be on the cards, it would work on this evidence) is outstanding design by Paul Farnsworth, aided by shabby costumes and Emma Chapman’s wan light. Even in the supposedly happier nightclub scenes, the bulbs match the people - too war weary to shine.
Into the midst of a city hustling to survive walks Western tales US novelist Holly Martins (Sam Underwood), in search of his friend Harry Lime (Simon Bailey). Harry is dead, Holly just makes the funeral. But why are the military so interested and who is the mysterious blonde mourner? The answers are always unexpected and absolutely nothing can be taken at face value.
Underwood moves Holly from naïve writer to disillusioned survivor in two hours. Increasingly irrational yet with the best of motives. Ingenious staging of the “Ferris Wheel” confrontation is played with all the claustrophobic drama it deserves.
Rebecca Howell’s beautifully choreographed “dream sequence” is another highlight, the company placing Holly at the centre of the dilemma.
As love interest Anna Schmidt, Natalie Dunne communicates the veneer of the scared and hopelessly infatuated with a beautiful singing voice. Her final scene is moving, her reactions genuine and spontaneous.
In smaller roles, Simon Bailey as Crabbit, Culture Section, is a perfect unworldly moment. By contrast, the professional soldiering of Jonathan Andrew Hume and Edward Baker-Duly as Sergeant Paine and Major Calloway look the efficient team they are.
For the Viennese, Derek Griffiths alas gets little singing time but has a key role as the Porter. Likewise Alan Vicary as Dr Winkel and Gary Milner as Baron Kurtz do a fine job imparting small amounts of knowledge – saying less than enough to keep the mystery rolling.
Sadly, the music and lyric hardly match the quality of the book. An encounter in Dr Winkel’s waiting room hurls itself from “Carry On” to “banal” in a few lines of dialogue and lyric.
The nightclub numbers provide a chance to enjoy the vocal talents of the ladies, but the songs are not named in the programme, and probably that’s for a good reason – even the compiler forgot them the moment they were told.
According to the usher on duty, the show is “immersive” with the audience involved in the action. Trevor Nunn’s direction fulfils that idea with slightly less impact than “Cats” in 1981. If a few actors running up an aisle to cross row C is “immersive,” the monkey isn’t sure how that particular theatrical genre became so popular.
As noted, the opening song and establishing sequence is stale; musical theatre scene setting has moved on, this harked back to another era and became irritatingly lengthy. The tune was intended as some sort of motif, but failed to really thread through the show as intended.
It is fortunate that Trevor Nunn is a superb story teller in other respects, picking up the slack from the end of each number and pulling the plot lines forward with inertia-defying energy every time.
There is a much better musical score to be written for the play surrounding it. That the songs were almost surplus to requirements building tension to a pitch that the sighs of the audience at the end were audible, demonstrates very clearly that the idea is well on track.
An excellent cast in the perfect environment, just in need of a better tune. We can only hope this show has another plot twist or two to come in its promising history.
3 stars.