Director Georgie Rankcom seems to have established a very specific niche: Revivals of Stephen Sondheim obscurities that I'd previously seen at Jermyn Street Theatre, given bigger, better productions at Southwark Playhouse that still aren't enough to rehabilitate them. After
Anyone Can Whistle it's the turn of
The Frogs, Sondheim (music and lyrics) and Burt Shevelove's (book) short 1974 adaptation of the Aristophanes satire, expanded to a full Broadway musical by the composer and Nathan Lane in 2004. In a setting that's simultaneously Ancient Greece and the present day, the god of wine and theatre Dionysos (Dan Buckley) enlists his slave Xanthias (Kevin McHale) to help him travel to the underworld to bring back the deceased playwright Bernard Shaw: He believes Shaw's no-nonsense brand of wisdom is the solution to a modern world he despairs at.
