Theatre review: Once On This Island

After last year’s Bring It On, youth musical theatre company the British Theatre Academy returns for a second summer season at Southwark Playhouse, the centrepiece a revival of Lynn Ahrens (book and lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty’s (music) 1990 fable Once on This Island. Taking its themes (very loosely) from The Little Mermaid and applying them to a story about the legacy of colonialism, it’s set on an island in the French Antilles divided starkly along both geographical and racial lines – there are the black “peasants,” and the white “grands hommes,” descendants of the French colonisers. Orphan Ti Moune (Chrissie Bhima) is discovered in a tree after a tropical storm and rescued by peasants. When she grows up and witnesses a car crash, she believes that the reason she was saved from the storm as a child is so that she can in turn save the driver’s life.

Theatre review: Allegro

Much as I have issues with Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II - mainly to do with the varied and jaw-dropping ways they find to be offensive, and the fact that "Some Enchanted Evening" on a loop for three hours doesn't constitute a musical - there's no denying the position they occupy in American musical theatre - essentially regarded as its creators - and the love for them worldwide. So the fact that one of their shows has never actually been staged in the UK before has to make you wonder why, while still being fascinated to find out what it's actually like. Their third collaboration after big hits Oklahoma and Carousel, Allegro tanked on Broadway in 1947 but Southwark Playhouse's perennial re-interpreter of classic musicals, Thom Southerland, and his choreographer Lee Proud throw everything at this attempt to make sense of the story of Joseph Taylor Jr (Gary Tushaw,) a talented small-town doctor who's disillusioned when he takes a high-paying job in a big city.

Theatre review: Grand Hotel

After a number of big musical hits there, director Thom Southerland returns to Southwark Playhouse with another musically complex ensemble drama, though I liked this one a lot better than 2013's Titanic: Based on Vicki Baum's book Menschen Im Hotel, Grand Hotel has a book by Luther Davis, music and lyrics by George Forrest and Robert Wright, and additional songs by Maury Yeston. The setting is 1928 Berlin, a time of a huge gap between rich and poor, as the deferential staff of the hotel harbour a lot of angry resentment towards their wealthy guests. But if the guests we meet over the two hours are anything to go by, they actually have a lot more front than they do money. At the centre of the cast of characters is Baron von Gaigern (Scott Garnham,) who coasts by on charm and everyone's assumption that with titles come money and power, but is in fact broke.

Theatre review: Boy Meets Boy

I did have tonight down as a rare theatre-free evening, but Ian recommended Boy Meets Boy at Jermyn Street Theatre as a rather mental must-see, and I'm not one for resisting theatrical temptation so off I popped. The musical, with songs by Bill Solly and book by Solly and Donald Ward, was a 1975 off-Broadway hit, but written in the style of a 1930s golden age show with Americans in Europe, mismatched but made-for-each-other couples, a bunch of misunderstandings and a lead who thinks his love interest is two different people. The big conceit of the show though is that this is an alternate 1930s, where homosexuality is not just legal with complete equal marriage rights (giving the revival a bit of topicality as well) but considered so run-of-the-mill as to be completely unworthy of mention.

Theatre review: Victor/Victoria

Thom Southerland's musical revivals have become a regular feature in Southwark Playhouse's Vault and hopefully one that will follow to wherever the new venue turns out to be. For the final show underneath Platform 1 of London Bridge he's taken us to 1930s Paris for Blake Edwards, Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse's Victor/Victoria. Anna Francolini is Victoria, a talented singer trying to get onto the Paris cabaret scene but lacking the extra something special that'll get people's attention. A chance encounter with Toddy (Richard Dempsey,) a gay cabaret singer who's also just found himself out of a job, leads to an idea for what that X factor might be: Victoria will use her vocal range to cash in on the trend for female impersonators by becoming Victor - a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. But the plan's instant success is put at risk when she falls for American gangster King (Matthew Cutts) and may need to reveal her true identity to get him.

Theatre review: Mack and Mabel

The onstage preoccupation with the early years of Hollywood that's been an occasional theme this year returns with a revival of Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman's 1974 musical Mack and Mabel at Southwark Playhouse. Once again, the unforgiving space of the Vault has been given over to a musical but, perhaps thanks to the fact that he's worked there before with last year's Parade, director Thom Southerland has managed to get over the dodgy acoustics that plague the venue. Designer Jason Denvir has reconfigured the seating into a wide, shallow thrust, with a bank of seating and a curtain blocking the Vault's visually impressive double tunnels, along with their tendency to absorb every word anyone sings in there. The show charts the rise and fall of Keystone Studios through the turbulent relationship of director Mack Sennett (Norman Bowman) and Mabel Normand (Laura Pitt-Pulford,) the starlet he first discovered working at a deli.