Half A Sixpence

Half A Sixpence was scarcely seen on the professional stage since its first outing in the heady air of 1963, when it formed an all-singing all-dancing vehicle for Tommy Steele. This was, of course, until The Chichester Festival production in 2016 which was the first major professional revival the show had seen. During the 1970’s and 80’s it was a well-liked title presented amongst many amateur societies but its popularity began to dwindle around the mid 90’s. Thanks to the afore mentioned revival which gave this sprightly show a new lease of life reworking it for an audience of today it’s become a more talked about show once more, especially in Manchester with this production holding the honour of being the amateur premiere of the spruced up version with a rewrite by Julian Fellowes (writer of ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Mary Poppins the musical’) with some additional songs and updated orchestrations by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe (‘Honk!’, ‘Betty Blue Eyes’ and ‘Mary Poppins the musical’).

Manchester Musical Youth welcome Seb Farrell as a new director onto their team who drew out some poignant characterisations and relationships between the players with this, his MMY debut, an important asset and knack for any creative director to be able to achieve. An area which didn’t involve enough attention from the director was the visual flow of the narrative - for example, in one scene the action takes place on the street outside the ‘Hope & Anchor’ pub where the set suggests the entrance to the pub is DSR yet when the central character, Kipps, exits USL to go into the pub which visually told us that he was walking away from the pub, presenting confusion. Then, in the scene which immediately follows, Kipps enters into the pub USR which displayed a rather jumbled course of blocking. More misperception came later on when we were outside the construction site with a piece of set telling us that the site is DSL yet the cast were pointing and referencing the site to be beyond the fourth wall to suggest that it’s in front of them while, again, the set design was telling us otherwise. These may seem like minor gripes but how we see a story being portrayed is equally as important to how we hear it, therefore visuals are to match what the script is telling us and that wasn’t always the case. Where Seb really seemed to come into his own was with the individual actors to draw out their characters which were all delightfully depicted and exposed across the entire line up of principals.  

Moments of Emily Clarke’s choreography was terrific lending real oomph and flair to the larger numbers - particularly the climactic and probably most recognisable song in this show - "Flash, Bang, Wallop!" and also in one of the new numbers too, where Kipps leads the upper classes in a banjo knees-up. There were some wonderful group choreography sequences, however, with any cast as large as this it’s beneficial to the presentation to make sure each person on stage has a set position at every moment to prevent the impression of unbalanced or unclear formations.

We had some sturdy supporting performances from Sarah Barron as Mrs Walsingham who’d nailed elements of this character primarily the commanding status and humorous asides. Daniel Meyer was a hoot as the sullen Mr Shalford which was pitched just right. This show presents two love interests for the central character who were both skilfully handled by Emma Wilcox as Helen and Beth Kevern as Ann. I found it somewhat odd that they were both equally as lovely and endearing as the other which was the only trait in this plot that keept me gripped, wondering how this triangle scenario would pan out.

The production was musically supported by a 13 strong orchestra conducted by MMY Founder and Musical Director Kimberly Holden who kept the show moving whilst supplying sturdy foundations for the proceedings.  

Unquestionably, the star of this show was indeed Harry Warburtons epic portrayal as Arthur Kipps shining way beyond triple threat abilities playing the banjo, dancing, flipping and leaping, singing and acting magnificently. Although some of his tricks were somewhat out of period they were wholly impressive nonetheless! Harry was indeed the pivot of the show which he seemed to take in an effortless stride. A very exciting performance to behold.

The jaunty smile of this shows book hides a sour reality though the merits of this show certainly don’t rest with the plot. It’s a traditionally British old school musical where lavish song and dance routines with some cheeky humour are what give it its charm.  

Commendably, MMY include and present an array of musical theatre styles which implants a broad range of techniques, knowledge and styles into its members to give them a grounded foundation into the whole domain of the musical theatre field. I admire how MMY present a range of genres across the musical theatre spectrum, many groups (including youth groups) opt to stick to a preferred type of show or will only prefer to present what they know (or think) they’re best at which is absolutely up to them and probably does work well for them but a company who can pull off golden age classic shows following a modern rock opera while maintaining standards is an impressive feature to any company. Talent should be measured on versatility and multiple dexterity, the more different performance styles one can turn their hand to, the better!  

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