A musical to put a smile on your face
NEW British musical The Grinning Man started previewing in London’s West End last night, just two weeks after another home- grown show — Everybody’s Talking About Jamie — opened at the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue, to cracking reviews.
Based on Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs, The Grinning Man started out at the Bristol Old Vic under the watchful eye of artistic chief Tom Morris — who, with Carl Grose, Tim Phillips and Marc Teitler, began developing it five years ago.
It tells the story of Grinpayne, a misfit (played by Louis Maskell) whose face was savagely disfigured in infancy.
With the help of his childhood best friend Dea (played by Sanne den Besten) Grinpayne tries to piece together the fragments of his — and her — past. The pair create a travelling show, which uses puppets to depict their younger selves.
I was transfixed when I watched a rehearsal at an old youth centre in Vauxhall. The eclectic score featured a very hummable, soaring ballad; and a sultry, bluesy soul number.
Funds from theatre owner and producer Howard Panter were used as seed money during The Grinning Man’s inception.
‘Musicals are famously slow to develop, and each one is different,’ Morris told me.
Panter’s generosity enabled the creative team to take its time and build ‘the story’s world’.
But he feared few others would have his courage or that of Nica Burns, who saw Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at the Crucible in Sheffield and knew at once that she simply had to bring it to London.
The key to ‘ really helping’ the British musical to survive and flourish is patience, Morris said: ‘ Be patient and develop them.’
I think he could be on to a winner at Trafalgar Studios with The Grinning Man.
The show has a humanity that audiences in Bristol warmed to; and during its West Country run, Maskell became a bit of a local hero, with teens copying Grinpayne’s bandaged look. They knew the words to his songs and sent him drawings and paintings.
Readers of my column alerted me to Maskell’s matinee idol status and said they intended to scoot up to London to cheer their man on.
I believe they will find the show improved, with some re-writing of the book and new choreography by Lynne Page to augment the movement work that Jane Gibson did in Bristol