REVIEW: A LITTLE OF WHAT YOU FANCY

SALISBURY PLAYHOUSE

Running in tandem with the brilliant family show The Night Before Christmas, featuring the same talented cast and ingenious stage set, this is a thought-provoking production.

Set in a middle-class Victorian family home with traditional patriarchal father, piano-playing brother (helpful for the musical numbers), and docile maid, it’s the pivotal mother character who’s an explosive mix of Victorian tradition and radical thinking.

Act One shows an England whose Empire was arrogantly running the world, featuring We Didn’t Want To Fight But By Jingo If We Do and the vainglorious He Is An Englishman. Victorian fascination with the gruesome macabre features in The Hearse Song.

Act Two introduces change, through the vacuous Champagne Charlie, the casual horror of Your Baby Has Gone Down The Plug-hole, and social awareness of a poor tramp singing I Live In Trafalgar Square.

Changing attitudes are shown through the early folk protest song I’m A Four Loom Weaver, the hard slog of railway construction in The Iron Road, and the growing popularity of socialism in The Red Flag.

Among four outstanding vocalists, Sophie Evans as the maid excels on The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery and the moving hymn Abide With Me, while pianist Glyn Kerslake delivers the moving narrative song After The Ball Is Over.

A Little Of What You Fancy runs until January 21, The Night Before Christmas until New Year’s Eve. Matinees available for both productions.

Brendan McCusker