9 to 5 The Musical

Staging a major show at this venue for the first time (although it is used for the society’s pantos) this production of Dolly Parton’s musical will have given the production team and cast some challenging moments.  The end result was that it worked very well in a small-ish venue.

Based on the highly popular 1980 movie I don’t think it has a particularly strong story but the show is uplifted by music which has a country feel, but not exclusively.  However it is probably fair to say that apart from the title song, I could remember very few after the show had finished.  That’s not the fault of the society though.

Set mainly in an office environment the show is centred on three main female characters, Violet (Mandy Pearson), Judy (Claire Cooper) and Doralee (Georgia Kingston). The three ladies formed a good team and worked well especially when plotting their revenge on the boss.  Wearing a blonde wig Georgia provided an extremely good copy of Dolly Parton with some super musical interpretations.

The main male part is the unsavoury and over-powering boss, Franklin Hart Jnr which was portrayed with high energy by Richard Gorton.  Violet’s younger love interest was nicely played by R Carlton Swales and I really enjoyed their Let Love Grow duet.

Angela Mansfield gave a very enjoyable performance of Roz and there was good support throughout the show from the rest of the hard working cast.

The set was very good and worked well by cast and backstage personnel and costumes were in keeping with the time if the action.  The orchestra was positioned in a balcony and sounded good but to me there were sound balance problems and it was difficult to hear dialogue and vocals which was a shame.  This meant that some of the numbers lacked impact.

However, there was no doubt at all that the audience loved the show and were singing along with the reprise of 9 to 5 at the end.  A creditable performance.

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