DAYS OF HOPE. To 22 April.

London.

DAYS OF HOPE
by Howard Goodall book by Renata Allen.

King’s Head Theatre 115 Upper Street N1 1QN To 22 April 2007.
Tue-Sat 8pm Sat & Sun 3.30pm.
Rus 2hr One interval.

TICKETS: 020 7226 1916.
www.kingsheadtheatre.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 March.

A musical where the music is all.
When there are so many mediocre new musicals vying for attention, why revive an old one? Some things about this 1990 story set at the end of the Spanish Civil War are outright embarrassing. Others just seem incompetent. It’s been around 17 years; has nobody noticed yet?

Politically, it’s naïve, representing a simple divide, whereas Ken Loach’s film Land and Freedom and C J Sansom’s novel Winter in Madrid are examples of fictional accounts delineating intriguing fissures within the Spanish Left and Right respectively.

The setting’s a peasant household, where the daughter’s marrying an English volunteer for the Republic. Having been introduced, this pair are at once sidelined in favour of others, especially neighbour Teresa and Non Pasaran-spirited fighter Jose.

Characters are generally thin enough to make a wafer seem bulky. There’s no peasant feel to the language, voices or physical movement. Instead there is a kind of middle-class version of Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon playing-at-peasantry. It emerges these people are cultured: a hymn to assassinated poet Lorca appears from nowhere, before the story resumes.

Or, rather, begins, for real action only occurs in the last few minutes, though it’s been possible to predict what’s coming long before. So inept is all this it seems the book must have been an attempt to write around a suite of pre-existing songs. Even so, it takes some tolerating.

The sole reason for bringing this back to life in Russell Labey’s functional production is Howard Goodall’s score. There’s an anthem-like strength to the melodies, which often gain distinction by a sudden twist of the vocal line. Though the small stage (with Georgia Lowe’s capable and practical design) makes any attempt at heroics, and a brief switch to political satire, unconvincing, the rundown of fascist leaders is deft, while the final song of the socialists’ 13-year old goatherd mascot uses its repeated lines to build a dreamlike optimism.

Performances are widely variable, but Siobhan McCarthy gives a sense of the peasant-mother’s resilience and Matt Cross a sense of danger as a committed anti-fascist fighter. But the music, rather than the play, is the thing.

Carlos: David Burt.
Maria: Siobhan McCarthy.
Sofia: Aimie Atkinson.
Jose: Matt Cross.
Pablo: James Russell.
Stanley: Simon Thomas.
Teresa: Victoria Yeates.
Antonio: Jordan Clarke/Adam Megginson/Sebaastian Chichizola.

Director: Russell Labey.
Designer: Georgia Lowe.
Lighting: Mike Robertson.
Musical Staging: Tara Wilkinson.
Musical Director: Kelvin Thomson.

2007-03-26 02:12:09