HIGH SOCIETY

HIGH SOCIETY

at The Old Vic Theatre

16.05.2015

The Swell Party starts, after a lengthy pre-show, with a party piece. Joe Stilgoe, son and heir of Richard, is left alone at the on-stage grand to show off by asking the audience for tunes to weave into virtuoso variations.

Take Five, George Michael, O Mio Babbino Caro, Moon River – a great medley, and a hard act to follow, frankly. Especially as High Society is no Anything Goes. A compendium piece, with Cole Porter numbers from various eras, and a Philadelphia Storyline about the romantic tangles of the Long Island idle rich.

Maria Friedman's slick, inventive staging uses the tiny performance area – about the size of an ocean liner dance floor, audience on all four sides – with movement and magic, highlighting some excellent period performances. Kate Fleetwood is socialite Tracy Lord, whose ex [a brilliant Rupert Young] turns up on the eve of her wedding to wooden, humourless Kittredge [Richard Grieve]. The plot is charmingly thickened by two undercover journalists – Jamie Parker and Anabel Scholey. Many stellar performances further down the bill, too, from Ellie Bamber as the tomboy younger Lord sister, Barbara Flynn as their mother, and a bearded Jeff Rawle twinkling away like Dickie Attenborough as tipsy Uncle Willie.

The chorus comment on the action, shift the furniture, and cook a sunnyside-up breakfast grill at the side. The curtain calls have not only brilliant choreography but even a musical backing synchronized with the characters.

Two stand-out numbers among so many standards [and the odd archaeological specimen] – True Love, with the eponymous model boat on the projected pool and later in the circle as the stalls seemingly fill with water, and a stunning Let's Misbehave, with Stilgoe joining MD Theo Jamieson at two pianos, and Nathan M Wright's choreography including a tap routine on the lid of the grand.

I've high hopes of Chichester's two musicals for 2015, but I'm not sure that even they can come up with a production number to beat that memorable Let's Misbehave.

THE WINSLOW BOY

THE WINSLOW BOY

Understudy Run at the Old Vic Theatre

30.04.13

Not an easy ride for the understudies here; the central role of Winslow père [usually Henry Goodman] is wordy in the extreme; all credit to Nigel Carrington for suggesting so successfully the character of the man whose determination ruins his health, and all but splits his family. Everyone in the Old Vic felt for him as he stumbled at the final hurdle.

His son, accused of stealing the five bob postal order [a phrase which will mean nothing to today's 13-year-olds] was excellently done by Harry Tomes – a totally convincing performance, with strong support from Melanie Ramsey as his suffragette sister, and Samuel Clayton as his feckless elder brother, practising ragtime moves when he should have been studying. Sia Berkeley, who normally plays the lady journalist, was promoted to lady of the house; she gave a moving performance, torn between allegiances, anxious for her husband and her children.

The permutations became complicated after this, with cast regulars reading from scripts. Jay Villiers, who is normally the once-famous cricketer, now hapless suitor of daughter Grace, read the advocate, Sir Robert Morton, with aplomb and an impressive moustache – the crucial central cross-examination was excitingly paced, and compelling, even with script and understudy. Stephen Joseph, who's the photographer in the main cast, made a nicely awkward Curry, [his proposal scene very skilfully handled] and in a final attempt at confusion, was Grace's other suitor in Act Three !

Lindsay Posner's rightly praised production, with its solid set and atmospheric lighting, survived the potential chaos very successfully; as ever, it was good to see the understudies given a chance to shine in Rattigan's classic examination of class, feminism, justice and the fourth estate.