Before Rodgers and Hammerstein were a thing there was Kern and Hammerstein, Oscar
Hammerstein II writing book and lyrics for a number of shows with music by Jerome
Kern, although of these only
Show Boat is particularly remembered and revived
- and indeed credited with creating the 20th century American musical. Daniel Evans'
production from Sheffield has been quite rightly praised as it moves to London,
although however stellar the production and performances are they can only go so far
in papering over the many problematic elements. Starting in the 1880s and spanning
approximately 40 years,
Show Boat follows Magnolia "Nola" Hawks (Gina Beck)
from her time as a teenager on the steamboat run by her father Cap'n Andy (Malcolm
Sinclair,) which goes up and down the Mississippi every summer, stopping off at
small towns and playing from their repertoire of melodrama. Nola's mother Parthy
(Lucy Briers) would never hear of her daughter taking to the stage herself, but when
their leading lady is chased out of town for being secretly mixed-race, she gets her
chance.
