Katherine the great storms the West End
CAROUSEL
London Coliseum, until May 13. Tickets: 020 7845 9300 THERE must be something in the air. This is the third musical I have seen this year that delivers in every respect – and it’s still only April.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s groundbreaking work is closer to an opera than a musical, though. The combination of gritty reality and intervention from the afterlife recalls the great Powell/ Pressburger film A Matter Of Life And Death.
In this semi-staged production, operatic singing stars Katherine Jenkins and Alfie Boe go head-to-head in a story of marital discord, tragedy and redemption in a New England fishing town.
When local carousel barker and bad boy Billy Bigelow (Boe) marries the guileless Julie Jordan (Jenkins), there is an outbreak of tutting among the locals. Then Billy loses his job and becomes increasingly abusive to his wife.
When Julie reveals she is pregnant, he reluctantly joins the slimy Jigger (Derek Hagen) in a street robbery that goes wrong. Billy commits suicide. But years later, he is given one day to redeem himself by the heavenly Starkeeper (Nicholas Lyndhurst) and is returned to earth to help his troubled teenage daughter Louise (Amy Everett). Boe is convincingly rough as Billy and his strong tenor has a depth and edge that ricochets around the auditorium, especially in his great song Soliloquy. Jenkins is the picture of sweetness as Julie and her awesome range is displayed in the brilliant If I Loved You.
They are ably supported by the feisty and funny Alex Young as Julie’s best friend Carrie, who marries boring but successful Enoch Snow (Gavin Spokes).
And a special mention must go to Brenda Edwards as Nettie who kicks June Is Bustin’ Out All Over into touch.
With an orchestra that stretches literally from wall to wall and striking choreography by Josh Rhodes, this is a resounding triumph.
I hardly need add that by the reprise of You’ll Never Walk Alone, I was reaching for the Kleenex.
THE GOAT, OR WHO IS SYLVIA?
Theatre Royal Haymarket, until June 24. Tickets: 020 7930 8800 WHAT could be worse for a happily married wife than discovering her husband is having an affair with another woman? Another man, perhaps? Edward Albee took infidelity to extremes in his 2002 play by having a husband fall in love with the farmyard animal of the title. Hovering between humour, horror and disgust, it has lost none of its power to shock and dismay.
Damien Lewis is terrific as successful architect Martin who starts unravelling during a television interview conducted by his best friend Ross (Jason Hughes). The news that Martin has fallen deeply in love with a goat while out house hunting in the countryside is not well received by either Martin’s wife (Sophie Okonedo) or their gay son Billy (Archie Madekwe).
Open-mindedness only goes so far.
Ian Rickson’s production is beautifully observed and the absurdity of the plot never overwhelms the essential humanity of the characters, however twisted.
Okonedo has a great time smashing most of the on-set crockery before delivering a bloody finale worthy of a Greek tragedy.
Lewis manages to make nerdy Martin strangely sympathetic as he reveals his helplessness in the face of overpowering love. While Albee is clearly challenging the audience with a mischievous dissection of liberal values, he maintains a balance between incredulous laughter and genuine pain. Weird but immensely watchable.
OUT OF BLIXEN
Print Room At The Coronet, until April 22. Tickets: 020 3642 6606 DIRECTED by the eccentric and adventurous Kathryn Hunter, Riotous Company’s trilogy of tales by Karen Blixen makes for intriguing theatre. Hunter plays Blixen in old age recalling the time when “I had a farm in Africa”, a refrain familiar from the Meryl Streep movie of Blixen’s memoir Out Of Africa.
With huge white gauze drapes and a handful of props, Riotous founder Mia Theil Have and her crew of four harness the power of storytelling to acrobatics, music and offbeat theatricality in these quasi-mythical folk tales.