![](https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/3757_1572824405.jpg)
Show: High Fidelity
Society: Turbine Theatre, The
Venue: The Turbine Theatre, Arches Lane, Circus West Village, London
Credits: By David Lindsey-Abaire. Music by Tom Kit, Lyrics by Amanda Green. Based on the novel by Nick Hornby
Type: Sardines
Author: Chris Abbott
Performance Date: 30/10/2019
High Fidelity
Chris Abbott | 02 Nov 2019 15:43pm
There has been quite a spate of new theatres opening in London this year, and this was my first visit to the Turbine Theatre having missed its opening production. It’s a pleasant space under a railway arch with a small bar café and extra seating area upstairs, and is likely to come into its own in the summer when the outside tables will be popular. It is sited within the redeveloped Battersea Power Station, not yet fully open, and will be more easily accessible when the Northern Line extension is complete.
For the current production, the space is in end stage format with reasonably comfortable chairs, and two rows of sofas and bean bags at the front. High Fidelity is based on the Nick Hornby novel about a Holloway Road record shop and was turned into a musical by Tom Kitt and Amanda Green, with a book by David Lindsay-Abaire, relocating the piece to Brooklyn in the United States. The creative team at Turbine, led by enterprising Artistic Director Paul Taylor Mills, have quite rightly moved the setting back to where it began, greatly helped by the excellent Vikki Stone who can now add book writer and lyricist to the many skills at her command; not a clunky rhyme or unsingable phrase to be heard here.
Production values are high too, with a clever and convincing set from David Shields which makes the most of the small stage and inventively uses vinyl records as set elements and props. The impressive band under MD Paul Schofield are just visible high above the record shop and the production is in the confident hands of director and choreographer Tom Jackson Greaves; and the dance in this musical is of a high order, powerful in its narrative load and always serving the number and the plot. If ever there was a case for choreographers directing musicals (and there definitely is), this totally shows the benefits – it is clear we are in safe hands from the opening number. There are also a couple of replayed moments, when the action is wound back and repeated, that are breathtakingly fast and stunning to watch; and the production even copes with the change of tone at the funeral near the end.
The cast of eleven are all excellent, from Jessica Lee and Lauran Rae as versatile ensemble members to Bobbie Little as best friend Liz; and Eleanor Kane and Rosie Fletcher show how character can be created with a few deft actorly strokes (and some quick costume changes). The Championship record shop has a trio of regular visitors and part-time staff. Robbie Durham plays no-hoper Barry who finally gets his chance at the end of the show, with both actor and character revelling in that moment. Also on the staff, and even more useless at selling records, is Dick: a subtle and endearing performance here by Carl Au. A perennial customer is brought to detailed and hilarious life by Joshua Deever who also appears, in a plot development which seems totally logical at the time, as Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
Robert Tripolino follows up his lead in Jesus Christ Superstar with a very different role as the drippy hippie upstairs and manages to bring a great deal of humour to a part that could easily have been a stereotype – and his vocal range is astonishing. As the latest in a long line of spurned girlfriends, Laura is played to great effect by Shanay Holmes, with a subtlety and emotional heft which plays well against the larger-than-life characters around her, and she has a beautiful voice.
The feckless Rob who has rejected her, and all the others, is the centre of the musical and tells his story directly to the audience, a tricky mechanism to get right but totally successful in the masterly performance from Oliver Ormson. It’s a big role and he barely leaves the stage but he draws us into his life and makes us even begin to like this hopeless individual despite his faults. High Fidelity is a great first musical for the Turbine and a piece that should go on to have a future life, perhaps offering a little more room for that superb choreography, but in a venue small enough to maintain the audience contact that is at its core.
- : admin
- : 30/10/2019