Ain’t Misbehavin’ – Southwark Playhouse

The cast of Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Southwark Playhouse, London. Picture: Pamela Raith

Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical continues at Southwark Playhouse, London until 1 June 2019.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Tyrone Huntley – Judas in the fabulous Jesus Christ Superstar in Regent’s Park last year – makes his directorial debut with Ain’t Misbehavin’, a revue-style jukebox musical featuring the songs written, and/or made popular, by the darling of the Harlem Renaissance, Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller (1904–43).

This plotless cocktail of a show was conceived in the late 1970s by playwright Murray Horwitz and writer/director/producer Richard Maltby, Jr. (he of Maltby and Shire fame) as a celebration of the 1930s and 40s New York jazz scene, personified by the larger-than-life stride pianist Waller. It proved to be a hit on its debut at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s East 73rd Street cabaret in February 1978, and it graduated to Broadway’s Longacre Theatre by May of that year, going on to win three Tony Awards, for Best Director (Maltby), Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Nell Carter) and Best Musical.

It crossed the pond in 1979, opening in the West End at Her Majesty’s Theatre in March 1979. But other than a revival at the Tricycle (then Lyric) in 1995 featuring Dawn Hope – currently wowing audiences with her mirror number in Follies at the National – hasn’t had much of an airing over here. This has been thankfully rectified by producer Paul Taylor-Mills who welcomed the production into the Mercury Theatre, Colchester in March this year before packing it off to London for its Southwark outing.

And what a joyously jumping affair it is! Huntley’s production is as shiny and as polished as the gold flooring of designer takis’ Harlem-deco nightclub. Five singers rattle and jive through 30 gorgeous numbers from the 1920s, 30s and 40s, accompanied by a top-notch band of jazzers mirroring Waller’s preferred line-up of piano (MD Alex Cockle), reeds (Mebrakh Haugton-Johnson), trumpet (Elias Jordan Atkinson), bass (Ruben Ramos Medina) and drums (Blake Cascoe) – all on excellent form and totally convincing as a jazz outfit.

Huntley directs with a light touch, leaving the material to do the heavy lifting. With no narrative, he leaves his cast to bring out the best in the music, and they certainly deliver with style, sophistication and sass. By the end of the show, I feared for the structural integrity of the seating, such was the energy pumping through the highly receptive audience.

The two guys – Adrian Hansel and Wayne Robinson – are Brilliantine-smooth operators, oozing with mischievous charm as they peak out from under their Homburgs. They’re both sensational dancers, with voices to match, and you can see why the girls vie for their attention.

When it comes to those three Harlem ladies – Carly Mercedes Dyer, Landi Oshinowo and Renée Lamb – each is sexier and sassier than the last. Again, there’s no faulting the voices or the ability to handle the choreography. It’s their comedic skills, though, that make them the audience’s favourites. Lamb in particular is hilarious, her finger-snapping sassiness stealing the show every time she sashays into the limelight.

Individually, they’re stunning, but the ensemble work is also impressive, particularly in numbers such as the searingly sad ‘Black and Blue’ and the beautifully Tchaikovsian ‘Jitterbug Waltz’, which are devoid of the striding gimmickry and show Waller to be a composer of consummate skill.

The songs are nicely curated and paced, and offer a mix of well- and less well-known numbers. ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’, ‘Honeysuckle Rose’, ‘Mean to Me’ and ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’ are among the more familiar, but the joy is in the discovery of some new gems: ‘Your Feet’s Too Big’, ‘Fat and Greasy’ and ‘When the Nylons Bloom Again’ were, for me at least, unexpected treats.

Oti Mabuse’s impeccable choreography brings it all to life, filling every inch of the thrust staging in the intimate Southwark Playhouse. And James Whiteside’s lighting bathes the space in gorgeous golden hues.

The sound mix could’ve been better – I lost quite a bit of the scant dialogue, and some of the lyrics – but otherwise there is little to fault with this production. I’d’ve preferred a little more meat on Waller’s bones – only towards the end does the cast break the fourth wall and direct a bit of chat to the audience, filling in a few details about Waller’s musicianship. More of this in Horwitz and Maltby’s book would’ve been nice but no biggie.

‘It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie’, as Fats would say, so – truthfully – as a show that’s not promising anything other than a joyous night out in the company of some cracking performers, Ain’t Misbehavin’ delivers 100%. If you’re a fan of this key period in music history, don’t miss out. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had an afterlife closer to W1 after it closes at Southwark in June.

Craig Glenday