Gatsby – Southwark Playhouse

Jodie Steele and Ross William Wild in Gatsby at the Southwark Playhouse, London

Gatsby continues at Southwark Playhouse, London until 8 January 2022.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

The beauty of creating atmosphere in a novel is that so much of the heavy lifting is done in the imagination of the reader. Adaptations often fall short when bringing well-realised fictional worlds to other mediums, and arguably F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has proven trickier than most over the years. In the eyes of many, even the super high budget 2013 Baz Luhrmann film didn’t match up to Fitzgerald’s grand opulence and social cynicism.

Re-creating the splendour of an affluent jazz age Long Island in the Southwark Playhouse’s modest Little Space is a tall order, but Gatsby’s design team – Isabella Van Braeckel, along with Belle Mundi on costumes and Dominic Warwick on lighting – do sterling work here. Characters are bathed in unnatural mixed light, mirroring the artificiality of their upper-crust lives, and making the appearance of a bouquet of flowers all the more powerful; real human emotions and the beauty of nature stand out in this contrived and constructed world of wealth and parties.

The evening’s musical accompaniment is provided by a wonderful five-piece jazz band led by Victoria Calver on piano. Henry Brennan’s arrangements and orchestrations of Joe Evans’ score are well-thought out and appropriately jazzy and sombre when called for. The songs themselves are a little hit-or-miss, with some given real power by the fantastic actors performing them, while others seem to begin for no real reason and then end for no real reason, with little of substance happening in the meantime. Still, a fun dance break or two every now and then is no bad thing to keep an evening exciting.

The greatest treat of the night are the fantastic performances by the 11-strong cast – on this occasion down from 12 due to a Covid case. With Luke Bayer sadly indisposed, Tristan Pegg valiantly doubled up on his minor role as a reporter to take on key character Nick Carraway. Understandably, he performed with iPad in hand, but his performance was nevertheless smooth and confident, and the tablet was never a distraction – even with its delightful neon pink case. Some absolute heroes of actors, understudies and swings have emerged as plays have fought to continue in the face of Covid, and Pegg should be immensely proud of the work he did in what was no doubt an incredibly high-pressure situation.

Whereas some adaptations of Gatsby focus more on the sociological commentary of the work, Linnie Reedman’s book mostly boils it down to a love triangle. Simplifying stories for stage is usually a pretty good idea, but there are moments here where the action does resemble a soap or melodramatic teenagers fighting over a crush. The fact that these characters are obscenely wealthy makes them generally unsympathetic, and the changes made to Fitzgerald’s book – including glimpses into these characters’ futures – aren’t wholly successful. The piece works best when the incredible cast are allowed to get on with digging into the emotional reality these characters face.

Jodie Steele’s central performance is a real highlight of the show. Not only is her singing as powerful and technically impeccable as one would expect from her impressive West End resumé, but her heartfelt portrayal of a woman falling from complicated contentment to straightforward madness is spellbinding. Her Daisy Buchanan lacks some of the carelessness of the Daisy of the book, and though this does affect the dynamic of the narrative, it makes her an easier character to root for. Peculiarly, the score does not do all it could to centre her journey, but Steele’s performance cements her as the star.

Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan – a detestable man who is nevertheless given an impressive amount of depth and charisma by a moustachioed Bradley Clarkson, who is excellent from start to finish. The third corner of this love triangle is of course Jay Gatsby himself. Gatsby is an enigmatic and newly wealthy man who briefly romanced Daisy before she was married. He has since become wealthy and used his riches to – let’s be honest – stalk her, in a way that is hard for even the finest actor to make not creepy. Ross William Wild is underserved by both the script and score on this front, but still turns in a brilliantly committed performance, showing off emotional intensity and an astoundingly lush baritone singing voice.

Right down to the less central characters, there are no weak links in this wonderful cast. Robert Grose plays criminal Theodore Woolf with a strutting smoothness laced with menace. Owl Eyes is a pleasantly three-dimensional minor character in the hands of the confident and funny Oliver Mawdsley. Julie Yammanee is tasked with some of the most emotionally extreme scenes of the entire show as the tragic Myrtle Wilson, but she shines throughout, particularly during her soaring ballads. Perhaps most exciting of all is Freddie Love, who plays friend-to-the-wealthy Jordan Baker with superhuman levels of pep and verve. Love’s stage presence is truly a wonder to behold, and their exceptional voice somehow sounds rich and melodious even over the venue’s lacklustre sound system.

A central theme of The Great Gatsby may have something to do with money not solving all problems, but in 2022 decent quality speakers are more affordable than ever. The fact that an otherwise brilliant facility like Southwark Playhouse has chosen the tiniest and tinniest theatre sound system I’ve ever heard for their smaller room is a major oversight. There are moments when microphones cut out altogether, and these are a something of a welcome relief from the harsh yet somehow still unclear vocal amplification. It’s not quite loud enough to be offensive, but the unnatural vocal sounds in both speech and song do somewhat keep the audience at a Brechtian distance, when the play would be much better served by inviting them as close as possible to best feel the emotional truth of these brilliant actors’ performances.

Although Ruby in the Dust’s production feels like a steppingstone to bigger things, there is still plenty to enjoy in this iteration. Technical quibbles aside, the intimacy of Southwark Playhouse’s space is a wonderful environment in which to experience this very human tale. Though it might not be the perfect adaptation just yet, based on tonight’s performance, it isn’t inconceivable that one day this Gatsby could indeed be great.

Ian Bowkett