Back in the good old days, long before most of us were born, it was film, rather than stage musicals that were the big thing. Many of them were vehicles for stars and the two biggest song and dance men were Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Although Astaire was mainly pre-war and Kelly post, there was an overlap and consequently a fierce rivalry – you were either a Fred or a Gene fan, as you would be with Arsenal or Chelsea.
In the past few years there have been a number of old American musical revivals but the two that came out head-to-head three years ago and fanned the flames of the old rivalry were Top Hat and Singin’ in the Rain. Fans again had to choose.
Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of Singin’ in the Rain, which is at the Bristol Hippodrome until 9th August, is a cracker of a show and it’s easy to see why the film, and this stage production, are so successful.
Visually the show is superb. The one-set-fits-all is basically a vast film studio but also becomes a theatre, an office and a street onto which thousands of gallons of water are poured every night. The lighting and the costumes combine to re-create the bright but soft and subtle colours (or should that be colors?) of old Technicolor movies and manage to create a real feel for the epoch that was, on one side of the camera, glitzy and glamorous and on the other, tatty and tawdry.
The big production numbers like the Busby Berkeley-esque Beautiful Girls complete with shiny aeroplane followed by the famous and very wet title song, were spectacular, as was the apache ballet in the second half.
But for me it was the personal, lower key solo or duet numbers like You Are My Lucky Star and You Were Meant for Me – songs that are woven into the very fabric of our psyche – that were the most memorable. Amy Ellen Richardson had a beautiful singing voice and an appearance and personality to match – a sort of attractive Julie Andrews. James Leece as Don Lockwood, the silent movie star (the Gene Kelly part), sang and danced very nicely but rather lacked the charisma to make it a really outstanding performance.
Charisma was certainly not lacking in the performances of Stephane Anelli in the Donald O’Connor part, Cosmo, and Vicky Binns and the brash starlet Lina Lamont. Both, I guess, stole the show – Anelli with his wonderfully slapstick Make ‘em Laugh and Ms Binns with her outrageous, over-the-top, multiple pile-up voiced prima donna who, oddly enough, reminded me of Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot.
Singin’ in the Rain usually figures high on any list of all-time greatest films and is always the highest rating film musical. This stage production has the advantage of being live theatre. It manages to get in all the best bits of the film and then adds the wow factor by presenting thirty-odd dancers jumping up and down in a enormous puddle and loving every moment of it – although I suspect the wardrobe department is not so keen, having hundred of items of costume to dry and iron everyday. But that’s show biz. Loved it. ★★★★★ Michael Hasted
