UP ON THE ROOF. To 20 July.

Chichester

UP ON THE ROOF
by Simon Moore and Jane Prowse

Minerva Theatre To 20 July 2002
Mon-Sat 7.45 Mats Wed & Sat 2.45pm
Runs 1hr 55min One interval

TICKETS 01243 781312
Review Timothy Ramsden 10 July

Pleasant but insubstantial between-styles entertainment.It seemed like a nice idea at the time – the mid-80s generation recalling their youth at university through a roof-top a cappella student group, then bouncing a couple of five year slices along to show its members' varying, and reversing, fortunes. But time can be cruel to more than youthful ambitions. This look across the 1975-1985 decade now seems a rather lopsided, insubstantial piece.

The lopsidedness lies in the use of music. For the first, rooftop, act as the graduating friends meet for one final singsong, it seems we're to have a musical with a thread of storyline. But the next two acts reverse the emphasis. There's little singing and more attempt to jack-up interest in the friends' changing lives. A bit of a pity, because a script which had served well-enough as a series of song cues lies cruelly exposed on its own. As they say, what's too silly to be said can always be sung. Not that this show's that silly – it's not that anything.

Where in the first act singing is the indication that Scott, who set the group up, is a bad teacher? And how, exactly, did the recording deal he seemed likely to pull off, go wrong – it's not a thing he ever boasted about, anyway? What makes Angela a star by 30 – there's nothing outstanding in the performance to indicate? These are all decent singers who can hold a line, but nothing in the performances – several of them less convincing in speech than song – suggests a future star. And how unconvincing is Scott's middle-act bitterness resolved into his joy as an infant teacher (what makes him so good, when he was a rotten teacher for the group?).

It's not a waste if time – plenty of popular shows have toured theatres in recent years with no more to them, and the authors plot cross-references well over their five-year gaps. The spontaneous, yet infrequent, resort back to old student habits and jokes are carefully placed.

But Angus Jackson's production doesn't disguise the limited characters – their luck changes, their personalities don't develop - or the opportunistic mix of laugh-lines and emotional cliches, neither leading anywhere much.

Bryony: Madeleine Worrall
Scott: Mark Stobbart
Angela: Jessica Oyelowo
Tim: Gilz Terera
Keith: Gordon Cooper

Director: Angus Jackson
Designer: Michael Taylor
Lighting: Chris Scott
Sound: Kay Basson
Musical Director: Neil McArthur
Choreographer: Scarlett Mackmin

2002-07-11 17:49:06