THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE.
London
THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE
by Richard Morris, Dick Scanlan New music by Jeanine Tesori
Shaftesbury Theatre
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Thu & Sat 3pm
Runs 2hr 35min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7379 5399/0870 906 3829/0870 160 2878 (booking fee)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 October
Thoroughly unmodern, thoroughly silly, utterly delightful MillieWhat can a country girl want, biting into the big apple? Not to have her purse stolen in the first few lonely minutes. Never mind, it's just a sign she's on her way to love and fortune, in a plot so self-professedly contrived that when she gets the man she loves, he turns out an even bigger boss than the boss she'd set her eyes on. Everyone's happy ever after and the audience delighted while the afterglow lasts.
On the way there's a not very threatening White Slavery subplot, with the villainous lodging-house keeper Mrs Meers selling-on drugged orphans. Maureen Lipman's Mrs Meers (Marti Webb at some performances) goes all oriental in the role, deliberately playing with the stereotype as it was between the World Wars. What fun she has; what fun we have at her performance, with the Lipman expertise in going almost too far while showing a restraint suggesting there's plenty more where that came from.
Meers is driven by envy underneath, she's just a failed actress? She's foiled by love. One of her Chinese henchpersons falls for the next intended victim. So does every man on stage, though she stays within the compound of formality as Miss Dorothy Brown - Helen Baker fine in a role that's part of the final reconciliation (as deliriously unconvincing as a Moliere comedy where total strangers end up being long-lost but closely related. Millie employs a family-values version of the idea).
Ensuring all this keeps the comic mood, scenes in Meers' basement Chinese laundry have two-way surtitle translations of the English/Mandarin (I presume) dialogue incorporated in the scenery.
Upstairs, there's a thoroughly modern surface and choreography aplenty, nowhere more than in the Sincere Trust Insurance Company offices where the big tap-and-type number is nicked from Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore - apart from American popular standards, there's also an unmodern blast from Tchaikovsky.
It all works beautifully. Amanda Holden is gives just sufficient reality, with a voice that amplifies well and decent dance technique. All round, a hit as palpable - if less painful - as anything in Hamlet.
Millie Dillmount: Amanda Holden
Jimmy Smith: Mark McGee
Ruth/Speed Typist: Zoe Hardman
Gloria/Speed Typist: Donna Steele
Rita/Speed Typist/Mathilde: Rachel Barrell
Alice/Speed Typist: Selina Chilton
Ethel Peas/Speed Typist/Dorothy Parker: Vikki Coote
Cora/Speed Typist/Party Guest/Dishwasher: Nancy Wei George
Lucille/Speed Typist/Party Guest/Daphne: Gabriella Khan
Mrs Meers: Maureen Lipman/Marti Webb
Miss Dorothy Brown: Helen Baker
Ching Ho: Yo Santhaveesuk
Bun Foo: Unku
Miss Flannery: Rachel Izen
Trevor Graydon: Craig Urbani
Speed Typist/Pearl Lady: Pip Jordan
The Letch/Muzzy's Boy: Tobias Walbom
Officer/Prison Guard/Party Guest/Dishwasher/Dexter: Mike Scott
Muzzy Van Hossmere: Sheila Ferguson
Kenneth/Dishwasher: Phong Truong
George Gershwin/Muzzy's Boy: Christian Gibson
Ira Gershwin/Muzzy's Boy: Roberto Giuffrida
Rodney/Muzzy's Boy: Adam Brooks
Muzzy's Boy: Chris Bailey, Matt Flint
Swings: Hayley Flaherty, Jayde Westaby, Ti m Beaumont, Mike Denman
Director: Michael Mayer
Designer: David Gallo
Lighting: Donald Holder
Sound: Jon Weston
Choreographer: Rob Ashford
Assistant director: Beth Eden
Assistant choreographer: Joann Hunter
Assistant sound: Terry Jardine
Assistant lighting: Alastair Grant
Moving Light Programmer: Pryderi Baskerville
2003-10-28 09:37:32