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Posts Tagged ‘Frank Loesser’

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »

A show from the composer & lyricist of the iconic Guys & Dolls that came some ten years later, and his only other show that appears to have survived, though it’s rarely revived. It’s 18 years since I saw it in Chichester and six since a London fringe outing at Wilton’s Music Hall.

It doesn’t live up to the earlier show (what does), but it has some great tunes, it’s huge fun and the premise – how nepotism, sycophancy and back-stabbing can propel your career – proves rather timeless! The show’s title is a self-help book (it probably exists and is still in print!) which window-cleaner J Pierrepont Finch uses as his guide to enter the business world, starting his meteoric rise in the mailroom of the World Wide Wicket Company. In quick succession he becomes Mailroom Manager, then Junior Executive in Plans & Systems before being promoted to that department’s head. Finally he gets what has hitherto been the corporation’s poison chalice of Advertising Manager. His nemesis is company president J B Biggley’s nephew Bert Frump, but he even turns this to his advantage. Along the way he falls in love with secretary Rosemary Pilkington.

There’s a comic book quality to the show and the production has a charming tongue-in-cheek style which is well matched to this. The Southwark Playhouse space seemed particularly small on this occasion, so Georgie Rankcom’s staging and Alexzandra Sarmiento’s choreography face their challenges, even with just ten performers, but win. It may be the most diverse cast you’ll see in any London theatre, in every sense of the word. The roles of Biggley and Finch, usually played by men are here played by women, with Gabrielle Friedman bringing a cheeky but determined quality to Finch. In a cast that’s strong in both dance and vocal departments, Allie Daniel and Danny Lane stand out as Rosemary and mailroom boss Twimble / company chairman Womper respectively. MD Natalie Pound’s small band do a grand job, with particularly good orchestrations bringing strings to the fore.

It’s a touch long at 2 hours 45 minutes (particularly as the theatre website suggests 30 minutes less) but it is an infectious ball of fun which carries you away, and with his masterpiece a mile down the road at The Bridge, a great opportunity to see what Loesser did next. Catch it while you can.

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Guys & Dolls

Posted in Theatre, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been in love with this Frank Loesser musical for over forty years. I think it was the first I saw, at Bristol Old Vic. I moved to London soon after and saw the NT’s definitive production, more than once, before a long gap until it’s next and last West End outing. In recent years there have been seven or so more, out of town in big and small theatres, a miraculous production on the fringe, at drama schools and even in Wandsworth prison, but Nicholas Hytner’s production is like no other.

The Bridge Theatre have perfected the art of immersive theatre in recent years with hugely successful promenade productions of Julius Caesar and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but an immersive musical?! A first maybe, but a triumph certainly. Damon Runyon’s 50’s Broadway comes alive like never before, and its this street-life that has always been the star of the show, notwithstanding a captivating tale of lovable rogues and their put upon lovers, and a score packed with great songs.

The love stories of crap game organiser Nathan & night club performer Adelaide and professional gambler Sky & Salvation Army girl Sarah are intertwined. Nathan has been engaged to Adelaide for fourteen years, so long that she’s had to invent a whole married life, a career for Nathan and even a handful of children to please her mum. Sky’s only in town briefly but manages to get involved in a bet that requires an evening in Havana for an unlikely dinner with and even more unlikely date. Just the names of the gamblers – Nicely-Nicely Johnson, Harry the Horse, Brandy Bottle Bates, Society Max – are a delight. It all ends happily of course with a double wedding and a mission saved from closure.

I’ve long admired Daniel Mays work, but I think this is his first musical, and he’s a revelation as Nathan (though in all fairness it’s a comic rather than singing role). Marisha Wallace’s vocals as Adelaide are stunning and she has real chemistry with Mays. Celinde Schoenmaker and Andrew Richardson make a lovely unlikely couple as Sarah and Sky as they navigate their relationship from aversion (well, her for him, or rather what he does) to true love. Nicely-Nicely is a peach of a role and Cedric Neal rises to the occasion, encoring the showstopper Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat three times.

Platforms rise to create stages of all shapes and sizes and it flows beautifully between settings as neon signs rise and fall overhead to complete Bunny Christie’s iconic period setting of Broadway. The band is top notch, for once above the playing area not buried in a pit, so you can hear every note. Arlene Philips choreography is often thrilling, notably in Havana and in the sewers below the city which the crap game eventually reaches.

This is such a wonderful uplifting joyous evening I’ve already booked for the final performance. It has to be seen more than once.

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How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »

This musical by Frank Loesser came ten years after his classic Guys & Dolls and is the only other one of his seven shows that have stood the test of time. It seems to attract star names – Matthew Broderick in the 1995 Broadway revival and Daniel Radcliffe in the 2011 Broadway revival. This less starry but hugely entertaining revival is in the lovely Wiltons Music Hall, London’s last.

Window cleaner J Pierrepont Finch reads the book that gives the show its title and sets about using every trick in it to get a job and rise through the ranks. He gets the job by namedropping, then gets promotions through humility, sycophancy and clever mirroring the President’s background and interests, all the while outsmarting his nephew Bud Frump. He ends up leapfrogging the President himself to become Chairman and it ends with a hint of White House ambition, which is impeccable timing for a 56-year-old show! It’s a good score, with some well known numbers like I Believe In You and Brotherhood Of Man, played well by an nine-piece band under Ben Ferguson. Loesser’s lyrics are sharp and witty and there’s a very funny book by Guys & Dolls collaborator Abe Burrows plus Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert.

Director Benji Sperring brought a great sense of fun to the very different Toxic Avenger last year at Southwark Playhouse and he does the same here, bringing three of that show’s terrific cast too. Wilton’s multi-level stage is used to great effect in Mike Lees’ design, with a two-story ‘corporate wall’ backdrop with elevator doors on the bottom level and the band on top. His colourful costumes make you smile. Marc Pickering is terrific as Finch, with a cheeky grin and glint in his eye, illuminated after every coup. His Toxic Avenger colleagues Hannah Grover and Lizzii Hills are excellent as his love interest and the President’s bit on the side respectively. It’s another show, like Promises Promises, also at Southwark last year, with a Personnel Manager (!) and Matthew Whitby is outstanding in this role. Daniel Graham does a fine turn as the spoilt brat nephew with a propensity for tantrums and Richard Emerson gives three great cameos, despite the dodgy wig in the third. It’s great to see such a seasoned musical performer as Andrew C Wadsworth impressing as JB. Geri Allen, Maisy Bowden and Nuwan Hugh Perera make up this small but very talented cast.

It isn’t up there with Guys and Dolls, but it’s worthy of revival. I last saw it in Chichester twelve years ago, but I missed the Walthamstow Rose & Crown Theatre production three years ago. I can’t recall another London production in my theatre-going lifetime. This was only the fifth performance so it was a touch ragged (particularly the scene changes) and the broad style won’t be to everyone’s taste, particularly more conservative musical theatre lovers, but I thought it was great fun in a great venue.

 

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Guys & Dolls – Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I never tire of this show. One of my top ten musicals (maybe top five, maybe 1st – ranking is impossible! ) but definitely the best musical comedy of them all. So my favourite drama school’s end of term production was an absolute must, but it’s a hell if a challenge for students, however good they are.

This show has everything. Set in a quintessential period in New York City as if time came to a standstill in the 50’s, from the moment you meet Rusty Charlie, Benny Southstreet and Nicely-Nicely Johnson (what names!) you’re swept up into Damon Runyon’s world. It has a wonderfully funny book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows with gamblers, missionaries, two love stories and a trip to Havana. Everyone’s lovable, even the rogues. Frank Loesser’s score is chock-a-block with wonderful tunes with brilliant lyrics (I’ll Know, If I Were A Bell, I’ve Never Been In Love Before, Luck Be Lady, Sit Down You’re Rockin’ The Boat…..). The guy gets his girl and the girl gets her guy and the mission is saved. Bliss.

The highlights of this particular production are the superb sound of a proper 23-piece orchestra under Michael Haslam, the luxury of extra Hot Box girls, great period costumes and an overture and entr’acte retro curtain light show! Bill Deamer’s choreography for Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ The Boat is sensational and Adelaide and Sarah’s duet, Marry The Man Today, has never been better. Luke Dale had great presence as Sky and Oscar Batterham’s characterisation of Nathan was spot on. Alexander Knox sang Sit Down beautifully (while coping with the energetic choreography) and Edward Sayer was a particularly fine Arvide.

Director Martin Connor has done many great shows here at GSMD and this was amongst his most ambitious. It wasn’t faultless, but it was huge fun and it shone when it mattered. For me, the superb encore could have gone on and on because by then I was in musical theatre heaven.

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Guys & Dolls

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2012| 2 Comments »

This is one of my Top Ten musicals and quite possibly the greatest musical comedy ever written, so I take every opportunity to see it. I think I’ve seen every London production in the last 30 years, some of them on multiple occasions. I was a little hesitant about this first(?) fringe outing though, as it’s a big show. I thought staging it Upstairs at the Gatehouse, though bigger than many fringe venues, was somewhat challenging. In the end I couldn’t resist and boy am I glad I didn’t!

What director Racky Plews, choreographer Lee Proud and designer Martin Thomas have done in this small space with a cast of 13, a 5-piece band and the budget of a small unfunded theatre is nothing short of miraculous. I have never enjoyed the show more and left the theatre on an extraordinary high. It came alive in the opening scene and never let go until we were shouting and cheering at the end (though we were also cheering during!).

Writers Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows were lucky enough to have Damon Runyon’s wonderful tales as a starting point. This world of loveable rogues & showgirls juxtaposed with the Salvation Army is made for musical comedy. The show links the stories of  naive showgirl Adelaide & marriage shy Nathan and gambler Sky & missionary Sarah. Nathan has to find a venue for his floating crap game and continue to avoid marriage to Adelaide (who’s told her mother they’ve been married for 12 years and have 5 children!) whilst Sky has to get a Salvation Army officer to dinner in Cuba to win a bet, then deliver 12 sinners to her mission to avoid its closure and win his girl.

Frank Loesser’s lyrics are sharp and funny and his score littered with so many classic songs. Some are showstoppers, notably Luck be a Lady and Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat  (when I went to a 1990 charity performance of Richard Eyre’s NT production, they had to sing this six times before the audience would stop applauding and cheering!) but here even lesser numbers become showstoppers such that you’re on a rollercoaster of fun that just doesn’t stop from start to finish.

The four leads are all superb and really well matched. Amy Bailey makes earnest Sarah’s transition to lovestruck believable and seemless. It doesn’t take long before you’ve fallen for Rebecca Sutherland’s squeaky Adelaide and her numbers with the Hot Box girls are delicious. Jamie Sampson has the right mix of cheeky swagger and charm as Sky and you know you’d have such fun if James Kermack’s hapless Nathan was your friend. They all sing and dance brilliantly.

In a faultless supporting cast, Jos Slovik (who’s been one-to-watch since Spring Awakening) is great as Benny and his duet with Patrick Rufey’s terrific Nicely Nicely in the title song has never been better in my experience. Connor Dowling gives Officer Brannigan a clever, more manic interpretation. Many of the cast double-up so well that I couldn”t always work out which ones were which. Time for another nod to a casting director – a gold star to Ri McDaid-Wren!

They’ve had to be very inventive to stage this so well in a small space with a small cast. The staging of the phone conversations is a hoot and the solution to the problem of delivering 12 souls to the mission (given that 4 of the cast of 13 are ‘missionaries’!) is inspired. There may not be much of an ‘ensemble’ for the Broadway and Havana scenes, but they still thrilled. We move from streets to clubs to missions to sewers swiftly, with some of the scene changes themselves choreographed.

This musical heaven cost 10p a minute – less than a quarter of a West End show and at least 4 times as good as most! There was a spring in my step and a smile on my face all the way down Highgate Hill. If I have a more enjoyable evening of musical theatre this year I shall be a lucky boy indeed.

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