THE CANTERVILLE GHOST. To 23 December.
London
THE CANTERVILLE GHOST
by John Kane based on the story by Oscar Wilde
Southwark Playhouse 62 Southwark Bridge Road SE1 To 23 December 2005
Mon-Sat various dates 10am 1.30pm, 3pm, 7.30pm
Runs 1hr 55min One interval
TICKETS: 08700 601761 (24hr, no booking fee)
www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 December
Small, not quite perfectly formed, but infectious.
Loud, brash, intrusive – how British writers love Americans, who impressed Oscar Wilde in his US visit much as they had Dickens before him. One torment Ebenezer Scrooge didn’t have to face though was Yankees tramping into his home. Wilde’s Lord Canterville does, when modern American materialism outdoes old-fashioned English guilt as the Otis ménage sees off the Canterville family spirit.
John Kane shoots the action into the present, with the Otis wealth based in a pharmaceuticals conglomerate that can clean away supernatural stains and easily solve a 400-year old’s dandruff problem. It also allows plenty of fun from Rolan Bell and Bruce Godfree as Simpson-loving twins from hell and, after the interval, an audience-involving pair of incompetent cops.
Kane has a nifty hand with a catchy tune (at one point in act 2 segueing neatly midsong from Weill to Gilbert & Sullivan), and his musical numbers never outstay their welcome. Yet, while the piece never comes unstuck, or unhinged, it hangs together more loosely after the interval when the fun and games are mixed with a more poetic story as young Virginia Otis undertakes a supernatural journey, resolving the Canterville Ghost’s centuries-old torment and guilt.
There’s an attempt to have it both ways, with Virginia as the pure girl being healing through tears while keeping something of her character cred as an independent-voiced modern teenager. It’s tactfully done, but the mythic element doesn’t really stick.
Yet it’s all neatly performed, Kane himself offering a model of English aristo ease and contrasting ghostly misery, while Mitchell Mullin offsets him well as a frank, brisk US businessman. Gailie Morrison’s Lucretia is nothing like the character’s name, but a pleasantly busy (if occasionally over-quickly spoken) person, while Kane prepares Virginia for her traditional heroine role by making her the lone mature Otis offspring. Rebecca Jackson speaks, and sings, up well for the servant classes: she is, indeed, a servant with class and in a macabre one of her own.
Singing voices vary in quality, but Jackson scores there too and ensemble numbers go with a swing. As does much of this show.
Wayne Otis: Rolan Bell
Virginia Otis: Sasha Frost
Duane Otis: Bruce Godfree
Mrs Udsay: Rebecca Jackson
Lord Canterville: John Kane
Lucretia Otis: Gailie Morrison
Hiram B Otis: Mitchell Mullin
Director: Gareth Machin
Designer: Laura McEwen
Lighting: Neil Brinkworth
Sound: Matt Downing
Orchestrations/Musical Director: Russell Hepplewhite
Choreographer: Kitty Winter
Assistant director: Gemma Kerr
2005-12-11 13:23:24