Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

It’s taken me over a year to catch up with this, deterred by mixed reviews and West End prices, propelled now by the return of co-creator Paul Whitehouse to the cast and a decent midweek deal. It’s extraordinarily faithful to the TV sitcom, a true homage which offers no surprises, but the familiarity, nostalgia and excellent execution made it a real fun night out.

It’s obviously an amalgam of episodes / series during which Del Boy meets Raquel, Rodney marries Cassandra and Boycie and Marlene’s attempts to conceive succeed. All of the other characters, including deadpan Trigger, are there in Peckham as we move between the flat, the pub, the cafe and the market. There’s a lot of attention to detail in recreating things like mannerisms and voices, and they’ve even created the iconic visual gags involving a bar that’s not there and a chandelier. Oh, and the yellow Reliant Robin comes onstage a couple of times. The music, mostly by Paul Whitehouse and Jim Sullivan (creator John Sullivan’s son) and Chas & Dave, and the original John Sullivan theme tune recurring, suits the show, though I found the addition of songs by Simply Red and Bill Withers, and part of Carmina Burana as a curtain-raiser, a bit baffling. When Whitehouse as Grandad morphed into Uncle Albert, continuity went right out of the window.

It’s well designed by Liz Ascroft, with the pub building and block of flats as backdrop to a playing area that transforms between locations. The Theatre Royal is a bit plush for Peckham, but director Caroline Jay Ranger’s delivers a surprisingly intimate staging. Tom Bennett is great as Del Boy, the archetypal lovable rogue that the show revolves around, excellently partnered by Ryan Hutton as younger brother Rodney; there was more warmth to the relationship as surrogate father / son, I thought. There’s excellent support from Ashleigh Grey as Raquel, Jeff Nicholson as Boycie, Samantha Seager as Marlene and the understudy playing Cassandra, who was very good. Paul Whitehouse was delightful as Grandad, more playful when he surprised us as Uncle Albert. The ensemble numbers were particularly well staged and sung.

I’m really glad I went. It was nice to be in a very un-West End audience for what is populist fare, but quality populist fare, and I enjoyed the warm nostalgia of sharing memories of one of British TV’s greatest sitcoms. Gavin & Stacey – the Musical anyone?