Famous for being a flop, the original production of Anyone Can Whistle (starring Angela Lansbury no less) closed after just nine performances and has rarely been performed since. Probably with good reason. The Grey Area Theatre Company and Alex Conder have plunged headfirst into this unworkable musical and brought it to Southwark Playhouse for a new run.
It will undoubtedly draw a crowd, given it has music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The problem though is the book by Arthur Laurents. Anyone Can Whistle doesn’t really know what it’s trying to be, and veers wildly from one ill-fitting genre to the next.
A small town, run by a corrupt Mayoress and her staff, hope to escape their financial difficulties by manufacturing a fake miracle, in this case a rock that spews out water. When the inmates of the town asylum – known as the ‘cookie jar’ – escape, it falls to Nurse Fay Apple (Chrystine Symone) and a fake doctor, J. Bowden Hapgood (Jordan Broatch) to get the ‘Cookies’ back, or maybe they want them to get away…it all gets a bit confusing.
Nurse Apple returns in act two as a French woman, for reasons too ridiculous to be worth explaining, and it pretty much keeps going downhill from there. It’s supposed to be a satirical look at society, but it’s not nearly clever enough, nor does it do anything to give a voice to those underrepresented in society.
This production, directed by Georgie Rankcom, does have a few good things going for it. Chiefly, it’s diverse cast who throw everything they’ve got at it. The production hams everything up to the hilt and practically every line is played for laughs. It’s entertaining enough but eventually begins to wear thin.
Chrystine Symone does impress vocally, especially with the title song, but the only member of the cast that really delivers on all fronts is Alex Young as the Mayor, Cora Hoover Hooper. Delivering a masterclass in comedy Alex Young all too often saves the show from descending into complete disaster. Young’s second act showstopper ‘A Parade in Town’ is the highlight of the evening.
In fact, Sondheim’s score provides several bright spots. It sometimes has a feel of Pippin, with a fun, almost circus like tempo before giving us a ballad or two for good measure. The brightness of the score is matched with bright colours in the costumes and lighting, but nothing seems to fit together, as if no thought has been given to creating a cohesive vision for the production.
Lisa Stevens’ choreography is energetic, often filling the whole stage which runs down the centre with the audience on either side. The dance routines honour the original production, including with a ballet-type sequence toward the end for the ‘collection of the cookies.’ There were some sound issues at times which need to be addressed in order for the cast to be heard properly.
Fans of Sondheim, and possibly even the producers, might have been hoping for a miracle, in that this could be the production of Anyone Can Whistle that would finally work on stage. Sadly, despite some effort to modernise the production, and make it a celebration of those who embrace individuality, playing it all for laughs just isn’t enough, but at least with this production nobody can say they didn’t try.
Anyone Can Whistle is at Southwark Playhouse until 7 May 2022.
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