FUNNY GIRL. To 14 June.
Chichester.
FUNNY GIRL
music by Jule Styne lyrics by Bob Merrill book by Isobel Lennart.
Minerva Theatre To 14 June 2008,
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.15pm.
Runs 2hr 45min One interval.
TICKETS: 01243 781312.
www.cft.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 June.
Delightful song and dance, with real life going on between.
This show’s most famous number has one of the most debatable lyrics in existence: “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world”. Tell that to a gawky nerd hidden beneath an anorak or a woman returning to an abusive relationship; loneliness and bruising are as much part of needing people as joy and fulfilment.
That’s clear from Funny Girl’s heroine. Fanny Brice, star of variety, including the Ziegfeld Follies, possessed none of the external ingredients for stage success. What she had was skill, chutzpah, determination and dogged training. Selective as this life-story seems now, when every investigation worth the name exposes all the maggots in the apple, for 1964 it sank its teeth with a new ruthlessness into the life of someone only 13 years dead and remembered fondly by many theatregoers.
Not that Fanny’s anything but the heroine, determinedly making her way forward, taking on even leading producer Florenz Ziegfeld (David Killick, in shrewd, straight-backed authority). Proving herself a song-and-dance star with a comic persona, she defies the mighty man, playing to her strength in a burlesque disruption of his big bridal number.
Privately, Fanny’s life was disrupted by a husband who started out seeming vastly more important than her; she meets him while crawling around, seeing Nick Arnstein’s imposing self standing tall in front of her. Her life becomes a labour of love on his behalf until, finally, Mark Umbers shows Nick losing both personal pride and social success.
Angus Jackson’s production has Fanny and Nick seated amid the movables of Mark Thompson’s set (chairs, tables, a staircase whisked around to order) for ‘People’, a rare moment of reflective tranquillity, contrasting the double act-ender ‘Don’t Rain on my Parade’. This is Fanny in active trouper-form. Samantha Spiro shows the star’s driving energy to succeed on her own terms. She sings and dances beautifully too.
Chichester’s 3-sided Minerva can’t quite cope with the end-on expectations of the big numbers, but it gives intimacy to the scenes from Fanny’s life. Enhanced by Stephen Mear's fine choreography (with Sebastien Torkia outstanding), this is a very happy opening to Chichester’s season.
Fanny Brice: Samantha Spiro.
John/Ziegfeld Dancer: Kevin Brewis.
Emma: Amy Rockson.
Mrs Brice: Sheila Steafel.
Mrs Strakosh: Myra Sands.
Mrs Meeker/Ziegfeld Dancer: Cara Elston.
Mrs O’Malley/Ziegfeld Dancer: Joanna Goodwin.
Tom Keeney/Paul: Cornelius Clarke.
Eddie Ryan: Sebastien Torkia.
Heckie/Ziegfeld Tenor/Mr Rinaldi: David Lucas.
Ginger/Ziegfeld Dancer: Abigail Rosser.
Bubbles/Ziegfeld Dancer: Laura Scott.
Polly/Vera: Kate Cobb.
Maude/Ziegfeld Dancer: Charlene Ford.
Snub Taylor: Pablo Mendelssohn.
Nick Arnstein: Mark Umbers.
Florenz Ziegfeld: David Killick.
Mimsey: Amy Ellen Richardson.
Jenny: Anna Carmichael.
Director: Angus Jackson.
Designer: Mark Thompson.
Lighting: James Whiteside.
Sound: Matt McKenzie.
Orchestrator: Jason Carr.
Musical Director: Robert Scott.
horeographer: Stephen Mear.
Dialect coach: Anne Walsh.
Assistant director: Paul Christie.
Assistant musical director: Gareth Ellis.
Dance captain: Kevin Brewis.
2008-05-23 14:19:41