BABES IN ARMS. To 7 July.
Chichester
BABES IN ARMS
music by Richard Rodgers lyrics by Lorenz Hart book by George Oppenheimer based on the original by Rodgers and Hart adapted by Martin Connor
Chichester Festival Theatre To 7 July
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2pm
Audio-described 28 July 2.30pm 29 July
Runs 2hr 45min One interval
TICKETS: 01243 781312
www.cft.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 June
Flawlessly exhilarating.
Some things shouldn’t be done even to one’s worst enemy. Like discouraging them from seeing this magnificent Chichester production.
It’s impossible not to revel in the music, dancing and sheer exhilaration of Rodgers’ and Hart’s musical. However slight the story, no matter. It’s a thread on which pure gold is hung. And in the individualist world of American musicals, this is a piece where the underdog ensemble is the collective hero.
No sympathy’s wasted on the powerful: theatrical producer Seymour Fleming (Rolf Saxon alternating grandiose dismissal of underlings with fawning on the powerful) or pretentious backer Phyllis Owen (Lorna Luft at full throttle), seeking to revive her ex-child-star daughter Baby Rose’s career. Least of all on self-important playwright Lee Calhoun (Joseph Wicks, swaggering, over-confident and sneaky). These dismiss Seymour’s exploited young company, working away in a barn, as babes in arms. The babes announce their uprising in the title song and make their mark in suitably theatrical style.
No-one’s unsympathetic in their gang, and everyone, even Kay Murphy‘s tall, caustic Dolores or her perpetually slow-witted friend plays their part in the team. From the moment Donna Steele’s forthright Billie turns up, a penniless itinerant who joins the company (and gets two fine songs, the upbeat ‘The Lady is a Tramp’ and the reflective ‘My Funny Valentine’), she too is a team-player along with aspirant composer Val (the innocently hopeful Mark McGee). Baby Rose joins the side of the angels in siding with her own generation.
Sophia Ragavelas cartwheels like a star, as part of a Chichester ensemble who produce all the show demands: musicality, physicality, light characterisation and humour, in a production by Martin Connor that moves smoothly forward, fluidly exploiting the large stage, generating energy and variety.
Upbeat or reflective, the songs pour beautifully on and on and just as it seems Bill Deamer’s choreography has pulled every dazzling device it can, the stage explodes into the final number (first hinted earlier in a casual piano phrase). Ironically, in this melodic festival, entitled ‘Johnny One-Note’, it lights the stage in a final celebration of youth, optimism and theatrical brilliance.
Dan La Mar: Tony Jackson
Maizie La Mar: Catherine Terry
Valentine La Mar: Mark McGee
Gus Fielding: Matthew Hart
Dolores Reynolds: Kay Murphy
Marshall Blackstone: Philip Catchpole
Irving Stone: Ashley Day
Pinkie Johnson: Kylie Anne Cruikshanks
Nat McCabe: Joseph Prouse
Betty Palmer: Stephanie Bron
Peter Franklin: Charles Ruhrmund
Libby Drake: Michelle Francis
Ted Vanderpool: Darren J Fawthrop
Mitzi Lee: Karen Aspinall
Bronson Jones: Gary Murphy
Davenir Smith: Graham Newell
Seymour Fleming: Rolf Saxon
Billie Edwards: Donna Steele
Lee Calhoun: Joseph Wicks
Baby Rose Owen: Sophia Ragavelas
Mrs Phyllis Owen: Lorna Luft
Steve Edwards/Jim Murray: Oliver Tydman
Director: Martin Connor
Designer: Hugh Durrant
Lighting: Mark Jonathan
Sound: Matt McKenzie
Orchestrator: Richard Balcombe
Musical Director: Mark Warman
Choreographer: Bill Deamer
Dialect coach: Charmian Hoare
Dance Captains: Kylie Anne Cruikshanks, Darren J Fawthrop
Assistant musical director: Kelvin Thompson
Assistant choreographer: Kylie Anne Cruikshanks
2007-06-23 10:52:03