Romantics Anonymous is a toothsome confection, full of Gallic charm. It tells the story of Angélique, a pretty and very talented chocolatière, who meets Jean-René, the owner of an old-fashioned and failing chocolate factory. She needs work, and he needs her new and exciting recipes. What is more, they fancy each other, so what could possibly go wrong? They have much in common, but unfortunately this includes a pathological level of social anxiety that renders both of them entirely inept when it comes to romance.
Directed by Emma Rice, Romantics Anonymous first saw the light of day at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, and was her last production for Shakespeare’s Globe. The plot is closely based upon that of a Franco-Belgian film called Les Emotifs Anonymes, but Rice and her team have created an entirely new musical version of the story.
Just before the entertainment-proper starts, members of the cast dressed in Breton tops hand out chocolates, with the strict instruction ‘Ne mangez pas!’ Everything is in French, until we are told to take a bite, and suddenly the French becomes English. That kind of playful whimsy is characteristic of the whole show. Romantics Anonymous invites you to leave all your world-weary cynicism at the door and indulge in a delectable, soft-centred treat.
Carly Bawden is Angélique, the girl whose shyness is so severe that she falls in a dead faint if anyone as much as looks at her. Light-footed and sweet-voiced, Bawden is utterly captivating. Marc Antolin plays Jean-René, the tongue-tied factory owner who wears a truly terrible knitted top, and who is himself a dreadful sweater, needing to carry spare shirts around in a suitcase. Antolin has a flair for presenting decidedly off-centre but sympathetic characters, such as his Marc Chagall in Kneehigh’s The Flying Lovers Of Vitebsk. Jean-René is virtually robotic when we first meet him, and his lack of savoir faire is both excruciating, and excruciatingly funny. When Angélique and Jean René attempt a tête-à- tête meal in a restaurant, their mutual awkwardness is a comic highlight. Their inability to speak is strangely appropriate, the taste of chocolate being too good for words.
Seven multi-talented actors play, dance and sing a multiplicity of other roles. Craig Pinder is particularly splendid as the ghost of Jean-René’s deeply conservative father, sternly advising him against any departure from tradition. During last night’s interval, Pinder came into the foyer of the Old Vic, delivering a song in which he sternly warned us to avoid anything as dangerous as actually enjoying ourselves! Gareth Snook is great fun as the operatically-voiced Madame Marini, the most flamboyant of Jean-René’s customers, and Sandra Marvin’s formidable talent as a soul singer gives real oomph to her performance as Angélique’s loud, pushy mother.
Played winningly by Tom Brady’s on-stage four-piece band, Michael Kooman’s music is tunefully idiomatic. Christopher Dimond’s lyrics are frequently very witty, and are laced with sufficient sharpness to avoid too much sickly sentimentality. As Angélique tells us, chocolate owes much of its popularity to an underlying touch of bitterness. Etta Murfitt’s choreography frequently features humorous pastiche, but when Angélique and Jean-René finally overcome their inhibitions, she gives them a truly romantic and very touching duet.
Romantics Anonymous is highly entertaining, though the plot has pretty much run is course by the interval, and the second half consists of a repetition of the same will-they-or-won’t-they theme. It’s rather old-fashioned in many ways, and its combination of wit, romance and dance is very reminiscent of the Astaire and Rogers musicals of the 1930’s. They are name-checked in the show’s final number, during which Angélique and Jean-René, swinging high above the stage, are seen literally dancing on air.
As we approach our departure from the EU, it is hard not to see Romantics Anonymous as a love letter to France. It also raises the question, just what is it about chocolate? Whatever the answer may be, many will find this show as irresistible as a gift-wrapped box of that dark delicacy. Magnifique! ★★★★☆ Mike Whitton 24th January 2020
