Picture: Michaela Walshe
Betty Blue Eyes continues at the Union Theatre, London until 22 April 2023.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
Whether the daunting presence of showbiz royalty Cameron Mackintosh and the show’s lyricist Anthony Drewe in the press night audience made the cast try too hard but this Fringe revival of Betty Blue Eyes never really took off.
Not that they made a pig’s ear of this porker of a musical which Mackintosh himself successfully brought to the West End in 2011 but some of its charm was lost, too many funny lines fell flat, the best song ‘Nobody’ wasn’t the showstopper it should have been, the action was too loud and ‘busy’ for the small space, cues were missed, and the Act II seemed to go on forever.
It was a shame too that Jayne Ashley didn’t make more of the dotty and confused Mother Dear who thought it was she rather than the pig who was going to be killed off. This is a rich comic role that needs developing.
It pains me to write this because I’ve loved Betty ever since it opened at the Novello with the magnificent Sarah Lancashire in full flow more than a decade ago, I’m very fond of the Union Theatre so was willing this first in-house production since the pandemic to be fabulous and I really wanted to encourage the mostly young cast on what for some was their pro debut.
No doubt it will get sharper as the run progresses as Union founder Sasha Regan must know what works in Stiles and Drewe’s delightful musical by now. This is the third time in 18 months she has directed Betty – first for the Performance Preparation Academy in Guildford, then for Pimlico Opera’s initiative with the “residents” of Bronzefield prison and now at the 75-seater Union, her ‘baby’ for the last 25 years which she is fighting to save as a pandemic-related rent arrears demand for £120,000 hangs over the venue.
But there is plenty of good stuff in there too: Kasper Cornish’s choreography in getting most of the well-drilled 19-strong cast on that cramped stage for the big production numbers like ‘Another Little Victory’ is little short of miraculous; the energy and enthusiasm can not be faulted; and there are some fine performances, notably from Sam Kipling as Gilbert – his ‘The Kind of Man I Am’ warms the heart – and George Dawes in the dual role of farmer and policeman. His dancing and acting has an oomph that makes his contribution stand out.
Switching from the role of Dr Swaby he played in PPA’s 2021 Betty, Josh Perry makes a strong impression as the full-of-himself accountant Henry Allardyce with the strange bedroom arrangements, so besotted by Betty that she joins him in the marital bed while poor Mrs A (Laurel Dougall) has to make do with the sofa.
David Pendlebury hams it up beautifully (no pun intended!) as the Gestapo-like food inspector Wormold, Kane Stone surprises us with a bit of ballet as Mr Metcalf while his wife (Aimée McQueen) is all over innocent Gilbert, the chiropodist with the ‘Magic Fingers’ who is much in demand, particularly with the love-starved war widows.
Betty of course is a pig – here a soft, patchwork-quilted puppet operated by dance captain Georgia Boothman, one of seven PPA graduates in the cast – but animatronic with Kylie Minogue’s recorded voice in the original.
Based on the 1984 film A Private Function by Alan Bennett from a book by American writers Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, it is a social satire that takes us back to 1947 and a post-war Britain of rationing, austerity and food queues where the nobs and the wealthy get the best cuts and ordinary folk live off Spam. In a little Yorkshire town the local councillors are fattening up an illegal piglet for the centrepiece of a ‘private function’ to celebrate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth (hence the pig’s name) and Philip Mountbatten.
Newcomers to the town Gilbert and Joyce (Amelia Atherton), his bossy, social climber of a wife, don’t get an invitation and poor Gilbert’s application to set up a clinic in the high street is turned down because their faces don’t fit. Joyce is livid but she has a plan and revenge is sweet… the local dignitaries get their come-uppance, Betty wins hearts and the good guys come through. Inevitably.
Other parts are taken by Stuart Simons, Tom Holt, Jade Marvin, Katie Stasi, Shannon Farrell, Hannah Lawton, Johnny Weston and Emma Jane Fearnley while the role of schoolgirl Veronica is shared between Nellie Regan, Ava Jennings-Grant and Coco Bennett.
MD Aaron Clingham helms the musicians, himself on piano, with Becky Hughes on flute/clarinet/saxophone and Sam Ingvorsen on bass. Reuben Speed designed the functional set and the lighting, in the hands of Alistair Lindsay, had its odd teething problem but these are early days. It’s a gently amusing night out that will get funnier.
Jeremy Chapman
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