Another new British musical, although playwright Tristan Bernays and composer Dougal Irvine have gone for the more accurate description "play with songs" for
Teddy, set in the 1950s but right in the middle of where Southwark Playhouse is today, at the Elephant and Castle. It was then an area full of Teddy boys and girls, the first post-war teenage rebels who'd grown up with rationing and defined themselves as Edwardian dandies to indicate that there was more to them than their poverty. But the places they hang out are bomb sites that haven't been cleared yet, and Max Dorey's set design reflects the grubby environment that the likes of Teddy (Joseph Prowen) and Josie (Jennifer Kirby) bring their own brand of glamour to (costumes by Holly Rose Henshaw.) The pair meet in a makeshift nightclub in a bombed-out church, when Teddy helps Josie escape the attentions of a thuggish admirer.
