Merrily We Roll Along

It was a pleasure to have once again attended Hampton Hill Theatre and this time watch Merrily We Roll Along.  BROS is a very strong group with an excellent reputation and high expectations to maintain. I was therefore intrigued to find out how they would tackle a show, albeit by the legendary Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, which is so rarely performed. Like most of the audience, I had never seen this musical before but the cast certainly delivered with gusto!

This musical tells the story of three friends and how their lives, and friendship, change over a twenty year period. What distinguishes it from the vast majority of shows is that the storyline moves backwards in time. Primarily, it focuses on Franklin Shepard, a once talented composer of musicals and beginning in 1976, at a party to celebrate the premier of his latest film. From there, the storyline slowly reverts to 1957, when he was a happy, but penniless, composer.

This particular show presents some interesting challenges for the principal actors. In a ‘normal’ show, that covers such a lengthy period of time, you’d expect to see individual characters develop. This is in contrast to Merrily We Roll Along where the challenge is to become a more naïve version of themselves. The three leads were quite simply exemplary, and carried the show with great confidence. Most of the songs are narrative and required considerable acting skills, as well as emotional delivery, to ensure the lyrics are fully understood. The quality of vocals was excellent and it was soon apparent that in the hands of these three it was never going to be a problem!

This exceptional principal line-up was augmented by another equal strong trio who magnificantly filled the roles of Gussie Carnegie, Joe Josephson and Beth - Frank's wronged first wife. All of them had the right amount of pathos and explosive emotion as well as superb vocal skills.  It it is vital to stress the importance of an excellent ensemble and those who fill various cameo roles. All played their respective parts very well, were in in fine voice and greatly added to the overall quality.  They were very slick in their performances and I didn’t notice a missed cue or wrong step.

Congratulations to everyone involved with Merrily We Roll Along. This was delivered with the usual high standard associated with BROS and one that I enjoyed greatly. I look forward to visiting again in October for The Addams Family.

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