What a joyous Riviera dance!
Glorious blast of summer sunshine in the bleak midwinter
The Boy Friend (Menier Chocolate Factory, London) Verdict: Time to shine in Southwark ★★★★✩
GET out the sun cream, and grab some ice lollies from the back of the freezer. This is twoanda- half hours of glorious, wall-to-wall summer sunshine, in the middle of winter.
Set in a girls’ finishing school on the French Riviera in the Roaring Twenties, Sandy Wilson’s 1954 musical gets an adoring revival at the boutique Menier (a stone’s throw from Borough Market).
It features Janie Dee and Adrian Edmondson performing in front of a wide blue backdrop that evokes cloudless Mediterranean skies — who wouldn’t want a bit of that?
I could only marvel at the itsy-bitsy chorus girls in flapper dresses and stripy swimsuits, squeaking like a bunch of mice on helium — who were matched by lacquered youths in Breton tops and peg trousers.
It all makes for a faultless fantasy, and Matthew White’s production pulls
it off with the help of astonishingly detailed choreography from Bill Deamer.
Deamer gives it the full Strictly, with barely a dance move left out — there’s the can-can, tango, twostep and Charleston. I was engrossed when it suddenly occurred to me that the hipshimmying, arm- swinging Charleston is surely the granddaddy of today’s floss dance. On the
Menier’s small stage, which is shared with the front row of the audience, the choreography needs to be good. First, to keep the punters occupied with something other than the ditzy plot of bimbo dolls teaming up with himbo guys. Second, to avoid personal injury claims. With a high-kicking cast of 19 vying for space like commuters on the Piccadilly line, how they don’t knock each other out is beyond me. And finally, the real reason: because the dancing helps set the giddy songs on fire. These include It’s Nicer In Nice, big company number The Riviera, and (my favourite) I Could Be Happy With You.
If you had a quibble with Wilson’s musical, it might be that there’s no really strong leading role to take us on a big emotional journey. It’s just a collection of delightful cameos.
As the finishing school headmistress with a fine line in Franglais, Janie Dee is a delightful diva, albeit slightly unstretched in the role.
Of course she is charmant, and her timing is parfait as she tries to get a reaction out of Robert Portal as her deadbeat millionaire ex-lover. He’s stiffer than a starched girder, but handles with care the perilous innuendo of his line: ‘I was a fool to pretend old Percy was dead.’
I did also wonder if Adrian Edmondson was a little too much of a seaside postcard caricature as the lascivious English Lord, drooling over the suntanned totty. But, mercifully, Issy Van Randwyck is on hand, as his Lady Wife, to crack the whip in the manner of Sybil Fawlty.
But it’s the show’s sweet centre that triumphs, with Amara Okereke and Dylan Mason dueting as richkid innocents who believe each other to be the ordinary boy and girl next door. Not once does anyone let their guard down with even the smallest cloud of self-mockery. If this doesn’t make it to the West End, I’ll eat my boater.