BRENDA BLY TEEN DETECTIVE. To 20 September.
London
BRENDA BLY TEEN DETECTIVE
by Kevin Hammonds Music by Charles Miller
Bridewell Theatre To 20 September 2003
Tue-Sun 7.30pm Mat Sun 3.30pm
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7936 3456
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 September
This is all very silly - that's one of its strengths.Here's another example of the cheaply cheerful musical - think Bob Carlton, think Phil Wilmott; then preferably stop thinking for the duration of the show.
Part of the fun's subverting our demands of the genre. When Charles Shirvell's Wally, the 38 year old failed soda-jerk, comes on with his stooped head and wig covering the forehead, the feel a large-scale, expensive musical would give of a desperate attempt to disguise doubling is replaced by the fun of the whole get-up-and-do-it spirit.
It does throw everything on to the cast. They have to be able to sing stunningly, dance pyrotechnically and look gorgeous. Else why are we chucking our pounds and hours of our lives at them?
This cast succeeds on all three counts. Stiffened by the more mature presence of Ruth Madoc, splendid in voice and movement, performers who seem little older than the girls of Whitney Ellis private girls' school, class of 1958, and the military training boys with whom they associate, provide energy, precision and neatly distinguished characters outlines.
Cassidy Janson's Brenda, whose cerebral deductions go along with a jinx the size of Macbeth, and who manages to survive physically dangerous predicaments with flawless nerve and mascara, is a beautifully played new version of the mentally perceptive student who can't see what's under her nose when it comes to personal relationships.
Fortunately Kevin Hammonds manages generous humour while mostly keeping the narrative momentum. And he resists the temptation to poke fun at a passe but over-parodied story-style, letting it breathe naturally in all its artifice. Charles Miller's music may not be ultra-memorable but his score zings along tunefully and wittily and would certainly hum around the brain long enough to sell plenty of post-show cast albums, if they existed.
Maybe one day they will. There's room to make the story less bumpy - the teen 'tec theme stays a long-time lost lost, after a brief opening splurge, while we enter into the tale of self-confident Autumn's self-written and directed new space musical. And the necessary romantic complications play more part in plot than character - the 'big number' love songs are the score's least convincing aspect too.
But those are minor points in a story that throws up a multiplication of motives among as many suspects as the budget allows for, with an eventual solution that only just misses seeming inevitable (it needs the mind to jump back to circumstances early on which certainly hadn't imprinted themselves on me).
And, the piece captures a period confection - all neat-waved hair atop youthful minds optimistic about the coming sixties and a suitable Cold War element. Here's an American musical companion to Denise Deegan's Daisy Pulls It Off, and a piece that could prove just as durable.
Brenda Bly: Cassidy Janson
Vera Van Strander: Ruth Madoc
Cecil Sesille/Wally/Dr Sniffles: Charles Shirvell
Buddy Rogers: Joshua Dallas
Darcy: Jessica Robinson
Jo-Jo: Holly Graham
Autumn: Laura Checkley
Madeleine: Melitsa Nicola
Gidget: Sarah Annis
Bridget: Lisa Baird
Stu: Richard Runalls
Candy/Nurse: Collette Fraser
Director/Lighting: Fenton Gray
Designer: Amy Jackson
Sound: Tony Gayle
Musical Director: Colin Billing
Choreographer: Sam Spencer Lane
2003-09-07 19:27:13