Sweet Charity

Dear reader, do forgive me for doing so but I'm going to begin this show report in a slightly unorthodox way in order to air a long held grievance and send out a plea to our audiences. As I settled into my seat at the Hippodrome, I was struck once again by just how little respect is afforded to the musicians in the pit - and the rest of the audience - by certain sections of the theatre-going public during the overture. As Stuart and myself settled into our seats, we were assailed by that familiar low rumble all around us: continuous chit-chat; coats being taken off, thrown about and rearranged; noisy shuffling; sweet wrappers crackling away... The complete disregard shown by some at the start of most musical shows as they continue to chatter away through the overture is a particular bugbear of mine and I'm afraid the main culprits seem to be the more mature female members of the audience. Please ladies: put a sock in it when the overture starts. The musical presentation at the start of a show should set the evening's entertainment off to a stirring start and is very much a part of the production: it isn't a 5 minute buffer zone in which to carry on debating those hot topics started in the bar. What you happen to think about Doris's cardigan or the damning indictment of Elsie's new hairstyle really can wait until the interval!

On to the proper order of business! 'Sweet Charity' is a show I am relatively unfamiliar with and despite a handful of the tunes having leeched their way into the popular consciousness ('Big Spender' and 'The Rhythm of Life' among them) the narrative and the characters haven't quite found a lasting niche in the cultural landscape. Perhaps because of this, I found the show to be something of a curate's egg and despite PHTC's best efforts in bringing it to life on stage, actually rather an unsatisfying experience. The rather patchwork nature of the narrative seems to have resulted in a similarly uneven production: some elements of the show seemed to work quite well but overall, I got the feeling that the show hadn't really managed to inspire great things from the production team.

'Sweet Charity' has the reputation of being a 'one woman show' and although no show can ever rest completely on the shoulders of one person, it is perhaps truer of this show than many others. Fortunately, Jessica Balderstone was a great Charity; confident, engaging and sympathetic. With the immense amount of time on stage - if Charity ever had two minutes off the stage at any point during the evening, I didn't notice! - Jessica breezed effortlessly though the show in complete command of the role: a great achievement. Jessica made the character into someone worth spending time with, which was perhaps just as well as it was rather a long show and there wasn't a great deal else happening on stage to engage the interest. 'Sweet Charity' is a show which moves us through a series of vignettes: we see Charity's progress through life and the various scrapes and dilemmas she has to cope with, accompanied by different characters at different times. From her base at the Fandango nightspot, she has adventures of a mainly lovelorn nature as she makes her picaresque way through life in search of happiness and, for reasons best known to the show's authors, this included a couple of dunkings in a fishpond.

This seemed to be something of a Jekyll and Hyde sort of a show: by which I mean there were sections which worked well, looked good, sounded good and were reasonably engaging whereas others seemed a little half-hearted with a definite air of 'going through the motions'. It did feel as if the parts of the show which really came to life had been worked on at the expense of the rest of the production which, to me at least, fell rather flat. The circularity of the plot - Charity seems to end the show in exactly the same state as she started it - rather lends itself to a rather downbeat view of the human condition which, despite being a refreshingly different take on the 'musical' genre (where hope usually triumphs and optimism rather than cynicism is the order of the day) and an impressively realistic one too, does rather leave the audience wondering what the point of the preceding three hours was - particularly when it seemed as if the production team hadn't really got to grips with it either. The supporting cast were all up to the usual Hippodrome's high standard, with Charity's suitors coming in the shape of Vittorio Vidal (Jack Herbert) and Oscar Lindquist (Josh Hindle), both of whom worked well with Charity in their scenes together and there was a good rapport between all three of the performers. The stage looked good for the most part, costumes were bright and in period and there was at least an element of reality whenever Charity took a dip in the lake: ie Jessica did emerge from the murky depths soaking wet! It was also refreshing to see a relatively young cast populating the stage and their enthusiasm helped to keep the show moving along.

Unfortunately, the overall impression of the show for me was the startlingly uneven nature of the whole affair. For every superbly constructed scene, there were two more which fell remarkably flat; sections of the show fairly motored along at a cracking pace, whereas others seemed to drag interminably. A few examples will perhaps best illustrate the point. The routine in the Pompeii Club was spectacular; well-crafted, finger-clicking '60s 'cool' at its best. Other big production numbers ('Big Spender' and 'The Rhythm of Life') - despite being just about the most famous numbers in the show - seemed to me to be lacklustre and a little thrown together. Other set pieces (the lift scene; Charity and Vidal's bedroom scene) seemed rather limp and workaday, certainly when placed alongside the rather affecting 'Baby Dream Your Dream' and the bounce and vigour of 'I Love to Cry at Weddings'. The section where Charity and Oscar are stuck on the fairground ride was very well done but far too many of the other scenes in the show outstayed their welcome very quickly. Without Jessica as Charity to help to smooth out the uneven sections on the road, the show could have been a very bumpy ride indeed. A show of this length being so full of longueurs is something of a recipe for disaster unless handled well and although I'm certainly not suggesting that's what this production was, it certainly didn't seem to have inspired the production team to their best efforts. There seemed to be no unifying thread to tie the show together, no 'big idea' or overall vision: instead, there seemed to be a rather disjointed and half-hearted feel to the evening.

Despite all that, there were many things to applaud throughout the evening. There were some great vocal displays from the ensemble, with Lisa Manley adding a nice period '60s sheen to the musical score; makeup, costumes and wigs were all good and the staging and scenery was also up to the usual Hippodrome standard; such flashes of humour as there were had the large audience chuckling away. As ever, my thanks go to everyone at the Hippodrome for a warm and friendly welcome and what was, on the whole, certainly an interesting evening's entertainment.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.