11:32am Saturday 3rd July 2010
By Ian Murray
IF Carmen is the superstar of the opera world, then 42nd Street is surely the superstar of the Broadway musical.
The Busby Berkeley classic choreography set the style, standards and is almost a cliché of its type, burst into life in 1933 and created a whole new genre of hoofin’, tappin’ show-stoppers.
In essence the theory is simple. String together a long list of fabulous show tunes, wrap them around the simplest of plots, and don’t give the audience chance to catch its breath.
Get it right and you will be assured of a standing ovation by final curtain.
And a standing ovation was more or less a certainty from the moment the chorus line completed the opening sequence at this week’s opening night in Chichester. From then on all the cast was required to do was to hoof it out for the next two hours and, provided they didn’t put a tap shoe wrong, the audience would go with them.
No foot fell short, and the enthusiastic audience was in raptures by the final reprise of the famous Lullaby of Broadway.
42nd Street provides the basic ingredients for any Broadway musical plot. Small town girl wants to break into show business, meets mentor, gets her break, gets fired, gets called back to save the show, finds love interest, saves show, becomes star. What you might call a Broadway No-Brainer.
Lauren Hall plays naïve hoofer Peggy Swayer, Tim Flavin her mentor, the tough-talking director Julian Marsh, Oliver Brenin is the young love interest Billy Lawlor and the superb Kathryn Evans the fading star Dorothy Brock.
But it is the numbers that are the real stars of the show: We’re in the Money, Lullaby of Broadway, I Only Have Eyes for You, Dames, About a Quarter to Nine, Shuffle off to Buffalo and 42nd Street itself.
At times the pace is almost as exhausting for the audience as it is for the cast as the show seems over-desperate to please. Certainly the break comes none-too soon. But the casting was superb, the dance routines sensational and the staging brilliantly simple yet effective.
True, 42nd Street does have the problem common to a few of its type that its key number – 42nd Street – is not its best and seems almost to slow the show down right at the end. And for once in this production the otherwise superb costumes fell a little flat in the final routine. But there is no escaping the fact Chichester has once again struck gold with its now traditional big production musical show of the festival season.
Well worth hoofin’ down to the box office for a ticket.
Call 01243 781312 or visit cft.org.uk.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/trade_directory/