Show: The Sound of Music
Society: New Wimbledon Theatre (professional)
Venue: New Wimbledon Theatre
Credits: Music: Richard Rodgers. Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II. Book: Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse. Produced by Bill Kenwright Ltd.
Type: Sardines
Author: Chris Abbott
Performance Date: 25/10/2016
The Sound of Music
Chris Abbott | 26 Oct 2016 09:53am
The Sound of Music UK Tour. Lucy O’Byrne as Maria. Photo: Mark Yeoman
Lots of scenic mountains, a stern paterfamilias, nuns a-plenty and a stage full of triple threat all singing, all dancing children: it must be The Sound of Music again. The familiarity of the show can be easily explained since it has one of the most memorable Rodgers and Hammerstein scores and a film which is loved by many, even fifty years after it was made. Casting is vital with this show of course, with Julie Andrews’ film performance holding off the competition for years till Petula Clark and then the London Palladium production showed that there can be many different Marias.
The production seen at the New Wimbledon Theatre this week is in the second year of its lengthy UK tour and is a well-produced and deftly-directed traditional reading of this milestone of musical theatre. In the lead is Lucy O’Byrne who is not only the right age and looks the part (unlike some previous Marias) but is also engaging, funny and gives a convincing performance. Her Maria is the emotional heart of the show and much of the evening’s success is due to her.
Opposite her is the impressive Andrew Lancel as Captain von Trapp – at last, a Baron who can sing as well as act, unlike those seen in some previous productions. He is also young enough for the growing attraction to Maria to seem convincing rather than slightly untoward, and he copes well with the staggering rate at which the characters in this script fall in and out of love and change their minds about things that they previously seemed totally determined about.
Around these two strong performances are a host of others, and it is good to see Howard Samuels as Max and Lucy Van Gasse as Elsa given rather more prominence than is sometimes the case, with both their songs, How Can Love Survive? and No Way to Stop It included in this production. Both rise to the occasion and make the most of the opportunities they are given. As the younger couple, Kane Verrall is a suitably weak and uncertain Rolf and Annie Holland a sympathetic Liesl, both of them strong dancers.
The children, of course, were drilled to within an inch of their lives, just like their characters, and never put a foot wrong, and the rest of the ensemble alternated between party guests and nuns, with presumably plenty of quick changes between one and the other: though times are a little hard in Austria and religious establishments don’t have as many nuns as they once had… In this production, it is Mother Abbess Rebecca Caine (the original Cosette in Les Mis) who steals the show at the end of the first half with Climb Ev’ry Mountain, a sure-fire winner for many an opera performer sidling into the world of musicals. Must come as a bit of a shock to some of them to have to sing ev’ry rather than every however…
It’s a very well-sung production under Musical Director David Steadman, and the strikingly traditional sets from Gary McCann are looking good even at this stage in a long tour. The whole production is in the safe hands of Martin Connor, an experienced director of musicals who some of us are old enough to remember as a versatile repertory actor in Farnham and elsewhere. His touch is evident throughout in the pace, drive and apparent realism of the production, and his name on the programme is always a good indication of what is to come.
Not ground-breaking theatre or innovative drama then, but this is traditional musical theatre of a high order, and the enthusiastic audience showed that there is still a ready audience for this most perennial of shows.
- : admin
- : 25/10/2016