Stiletto

(seen on press night, 31st March 2025)

On entry, the signs are excellent. Designer Ceci Calf gets wood to do sumptuous things to create a palatial set Baron Hard-Up would love (leave it in place for this year’s Charing Cross adult panto). 

An ingenious fountain splits into four to provide stools and other resting places. Anna Kelsey’s costumes and Diana Estrada Hudson’s hair and makeup designs would not look out of place in a BBC costume drama. Only the time needed for the beautifully decked out ensemble to shuttle elaborate candelabra and tables around mar the effect.

Orchestrator Simon Nathan, musical director Jae Alexander and sound designer Andrew Johnson rise also to the occasion. Matthew Wilder’s music is rather pretty – the tinkly string orchestra helps. The sound is “period” for the most part, drifting only occasionally into rather anachronistic operatic pop. 

As the tale unfolds, Jack Chambers as castrato Marco Borroni is as much a victim as Jewelle Hutchinson’s Gioia, the lost woman he attempts to help. Both could sing the same role on a prestigious stage, but convention allows only a male to do so.

In a fetching pale green gown, Kelly Hampson’s Azurra D’Orozco uses her society connections to make Borroni’s dreams come true. Douglas Hansell as her avaricious bi-sexual conman of a husband Pietro has fun with his schemes and also his male lover – when they are not indulging in a stereotypical (unintentionally hilarious) tiff.

This is just one symptom of a seedless evening. 

Cast frustration with the fruit-machine lyric, which comes up invariably in a row of “cliché” and “rhyming dictionary” symbols is evident. There is no sense of historic time in the words; the colloquialisms are both modern and shallow, jarring like a cucumber in a bowl of oranges.

Tim Luscombe’s book follows the simplicity of opera of the period. We accept it in classic revivals, but a modern musical must unfold with structure. Here, it appears that somebody dropped the script before binding, hastily reassembling it without checking the pages were in the correct order. 

The result is disjointed short scenes, introducing plot details which pulsate weakly, meander and expire without climax.

Dialogue is choked with awkward moments. Hampson’s indignant line accusing Borroni and Gioia of “killing my friend” in the manner of a school playground squabble draws inadvertent guffaws. 

Prior to that, either side of the interval, Chris Baldock and David Gilmore (musical staging and director respectively) produce a Chris Bean, Cornley Dramatic Society level sequence where the dramatic meat (and two veg) of the show should be.

To close act one, Alex Anstey (Don Ricci / Christopher Biggin’s stunt double, camper than a row of tents) is clumsily and hilariously accidentally stabbed. The audience titters instead of gasping. 

When the curtain rises after the interval, those titters become concealed hysterics as Baldock gets some sort of Native American war-dance conga going around the deceased clergyman.

The final 15 minutes require the snip too – though the “So Long, Farewell” from “The Sound of Music” tribute choreography is so incongruous audiences may enjoy it.

The cast are clearly having a ball up there (some more than others), but it is clear the blade is blunt. The creative team have clearly missed the tips and are close to getting the sack on many occasions.

A low-hanging pair, and frankly a total cock-up.