Gavin Swift and Ceri-lyn Cissone in A Little Night Music at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre
A Little Night Music continues in rep at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 17 October 2015.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★
Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s 1973 musical about bed-hopping Swedish socialites gets an impressive revival at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre – surely one of the most beautifully located theatres in the country. And situated on the same longitude as Gothenburg, you could say that it’s spiritually closer to the original material than most productions you’ll ever see in the UK.
The premise of A Little Night Music – the tangling and untangling of married relationships associated with the Egerman, Armfeldt and Malcolm families – might sound like classic Ray Cooney farce but it has a sophisticated Scandinavian elegance and coolness that speaks of its original source material. Smiles of a Summer Night is a 1955 movie comedy from Ingmar Bergman that inspired not just Sondheim and Wheeler but also Woody Allen, who reworked it in 1982 as A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy. Allen’s title – with its echoes of the Shakespearean comedy – tells you all you need to know about the plot, but rest assured that with Sondheim’s music and lyrics, and Wheeler’s witty book, this is elevated, elegant stuff.
A Little Night Music is musically scaffolded by the Quintet: three female and two male liebeslieder (‘love-song’) singers who are identified by name in the script but never referred to or involved in the plotting. More of a Greek chorus, the Quintet opens the show with their vocalised overture and provides musical commentary throughout. Thomas Heard, Emma Odell, Margaret Preece, Simon Pontin and Kathryn Martin are all in strong voice, with Odell giving a particular noteworthy performance thanks to her impressive vocals and her proficiency with the flute.
For yes, as you quickly come to realise, this is (largely) an actor-musician production, as championed by John Doyle’s companies at the equally picturesque Watermill Theatre in Newbury. Unlike Doyle, though, director John Durnin serves it up with the lightest of touches, and the conceit doesn’t hinder the actors or distract the audience. There are a few non-actors in the 16-piece ‘band’: MD Jon Beales (keyboards), harpist Helen Macleod, violinist Mark Wilson and Christine Smith on the French horn ensure that Jonathan Tunick’s delicious orchestrations get a respectable airing. But the rest of the instrumentation is provided by the cast, notably from Odell on flute, Heard on the cor anglais (although occasionally he struggled a little with the tuning) and Gavin Swift on cello.
Swift’s playing is particularly impressive given that he takes one of the lead roles, Henrik Egerman, and has to sing and act his way through a solo (‘Later’) while self-accompanying on the cello. Ceri-lyn Cissone as his young, virginal step-mother Anne Egerman also tackles the holy trinity – acting, playing and singing – with aplomb, swapping between flute, piccolo, keyboards and percussion when not giving it her all as Anne.
The two main roles – of lawyer Fredrik Egerman and his old-flame Desirée Armfeldt – are given life by Dougal Lee and Basienka Blake. Lee works well as the bumbling Egerman, his honeyed tones giving the character a likeable warmth. Blake, meanwhile, fits the role of the actress Armfeldt like a glove, and her 11-o’clock number, and the show’s only widely known hit, ‘Send in the Clowns’, is a controlled and nuance treat well worth the wait.
The last couple – and certainly the best written of the show’s parts – is Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm and long-suffering wife Countess Charlotte, here played to perfection by the show stealers Alan J Mirren and Helen Logan. Both give a masterclass in comic timing and delivery, although Logan’s ‘Every Day a Little Death” is painfully, acutely regretful.
On the periphery are the observers of all the knotty wife-swapping shenanigans: Desirée’s mother (the appropriately stately Jacqueline Dutoit) and daughter Fredrika (Claire-Marie Seddon), and the serving staff, the most notable being Isla Carter as the feisty Petra. ‘The Miller’s Son’ is a taxing number that separates the women from the girls, and Carter’s spot-on performance gets the balance of wistfulness and vigour just right.
Sondheim’s triple-time score – everything’s in waltz time or a combination of threes – is a sheer delight, and in the right company, as here in Pitlochry, it can really come swirling to life. The show not only sounds great, but looks great too, with lavish costumes by Charles Cusick Smith. This is a West End calibre show in the midst of some of the country’s most beautiful scenery, so if you’re close by, don’t miss it. And if you’re not, I urge you to make the journey – you won’t be disappointed.
Craig Glenday
www.pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com
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