(seen at the afternoon performance on 01st August 2024)
For those who don’t know, a trio of actors from the original Broadway cast of this show have haunted it for years. Controlling every major production, insisting it is done as it was first time back in 1975. Their conservationism arguably strangled London’s first revival of the show in 2013 as a top cast were ironically forced, like Cassie, to conceal their talent in order to fit into someone else's strict concept.
Luckily for us, Nikolai Foster’s Curve, Leicester, is outside the ghosts’ domain. In Christmas 2021 he created a new version of the show. A smash-hit there, it finally reaches London for summer 2024.
It is magnificent.
Re-thought, no longer a static museum run through Bennett’s choreography, yet retaining the spirit of this gut-wrenchingly deep showbiz sigmoidoscopy.
Biggest alteration is Adam Cooper’s director Zach. No longer confined to a “God Mic” at the back of the stalls, he is on stage constantly. Chivvying truth from the auditionees, showing them how it is done and finally doing it himself (no spoilers, but wow, just... wow).
Zach’s assistant Larry (Katrina Dix, in for absent Ashley-Jordon Packer) shepherds the company through. Video camera in hand, she shoots intimate moments which are now shown on a screen as they are delivered back-to-the-audience by the performer. It cuts the intimacy rather than enhances it, and is for the monkey one of only two oddities of this revival – the second being why nobody changed the line 4/4 in view of the final casting being 3/5. Moving on...
From the Line itself, each one of them is a special individual. Edd Lindley eschews previously quite groomed ‘looks’ in favour of scruffy 70s reality. Paisley shirts, dance pants, black (holed) tights, muted colours, careless hair - it feels right. It also means that we have a visually clue about each personality even before they speak.
Jocasta Almgill’s Diana Morales takes a slightly strange self-castigating approach to “Nothing,” a song about learning how to feel; but reduced monkey to tears with an astonishing “What I Did For Love” (fortunately captured here).
Carely Mercedes Dyer as Cassie is equally breathtaking in the long dance-break “The Music and the Mirror.” It is indeed all she, and we, will ever need.
As Kristine Urich, Katie Lee simply delights. Tiny in stature, fascinatingly huge as a stage presence, she finds the sensitive individual behind the usually comically ditzy interpretation. An interesting “Jewellery” top must have come from England, but is a perfect description of her.
Proud new husband Al Deluca (Joshua Lay) springs often to her defence, wanted or not, their scenes together suggesting the pair will navigate the rough times together – at least for a while.
The line’s two other young strugglers, newcomer Mark Anthony (Archie Durrant) and transforming Paul San Marco (Manuel Pacific) are equally well done. Durrant’s innocence draws sneers from the experienced, but we know he means that he really will work hard if he gets the job, new choreography hilarious as he explains how the church helped him.
Pacific electrifies as his story unfolds. His sudden enforced exit all the harder after Zach has strengthened him by exorcizing demons shatters every heart in the theatre.
Lighter relief, though still spellbinding (we are all staring at what she paid the Wizard for) comes with Val Clarke’s (Chloe Saunders) “Dance Ten, Looks Three.” Less brazen than the original, with more intimate meaning as a result.
The same goes for “At The Ballet,” a chance for a trio of ladies – Sheila (Amy Thornton), Bebe (Lydia Bannister) and Maggie (Imogen Rose Hart, in for Kate Parr) to demonstrate Ellen Kane’s choreography to best effect.
Marching to his own insecurities, Toby Seddon as Bobby Mills is far more vulnerable than usual, nothing masked this time by studied defiance.
Redmand Rance is a thoughtful Mike Costa, tentatively opening the wider conversation and landing “I Can Do That” with crispness rather than exuberance.
Bradley Delarosbel is a gangly Gregory Gardner, ramping up the pathos where bald comedy used to be. Another example of how, while retaining some of the original geometry, Kane expands the range of moves. Later adding particularly cross-stage dancing and a hugely effective actors’ circle similarly add to the freshness.
Moved by Grace Smart’s set design from the pit to a revolving two-tier plinth masquerading as an office for much of the show, the orchestra form a part of the visual. Howard Hudson uses vast frames of lights to expand and close down the space, punching the spotlight into the darkness when true single sensations are required – and going all out with fireworks to celebrate the final one.
A movable rostrum allows the cast to crash out and relax. At other times, while standing, the line chat and bitch among themselves (sit in the front row, you’ll hear wonderful off-mike asides throughout).
This is the essence of performing life, constant communication. Idle gossip, sharing of ideas and opinions (sometimes hurtful and scandalous, true) but always contributing something more to the experience of life.
Set free in this production, 1975 is here again, the stars shine more brightly than ever and we are reflected in their gift, rejoicing anew in what it means to be in theatre, for so long as we are allowed to borrow it.
5 stars, standing ovation given.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner.