Curtains – Palace Theatre, Manchester and Touring

Curtains was reviewed at the Palace Theatre, Manchester and continues touring until 11 April 2020.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Rodgers and Hammerstein (or Hart), Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, Lerner and Loewe may all be household names, but are Kander and Ebb?

Yet John Kander and Fred Ebb gave us Cabaret and Chicago, wrote some 20 musicals, and produced glorious solo hits for Liza Minnelli in particular. One of their least known, The Visit, based on a Swiss play dealing with the aftermath of the Second World War, covers one of the most shivering, powerful dramas of the 20th century.

A three-page article in the programme – after an excellent tribute to Kander (music) and Ebb (lyrics, after Rupert Holmes and Peter Stone) gives a rather good history of the ‘Whodunnit?’ genre. That’s what this production of Curtains is supposed to be: a musical mystery comedy.

Oddly, it’s the one element that seems to get mislaid in this joyous treatment of Curtains by director Paul Foster (with Will Holyhead). Still, there’s lots to enjoy: movement and dance, of course (the male dancers, fabulously precise, definitely have the edge), and the inspiring moves, full of subtle detail, of Carley Stenson’s arresting, feisty, exciting lead, as Georgia Hendricks.

There are plenty of superlatives. The music, especially the melody line, in reeds (e.g. clarinet) or brass (muted trumpet), or even bass, emerges gloriously from the nine-strong band, led by Alex Beetschen and Matthew Spalding. These wonderfully varied arrangements, with inspiring touches of staccato, are credited to Sarah Travis. The impeccably played score, with several touches of Kurt Weill, is vitalised and never overpowered. It is endlessly imaginative: tasteful and masterly.

The set, by David Woodhead, is ideal for this production, enhancing it at every turn; and the costumes (Gabriella Slade), 1950s-inspired, early hotpants and all, look a treat. The lights, especially the coloured follow-spots, and a pink-saturated sexy dance, are pinpoint-perfect.

And the numbers are virtually all a treat. Aaron’s ‘I Miss the Music’, sung so beautifully and movingly – and intelligently – by Ore Oduba, with restrained accompaniment of strings and keyboard (piano), is a classic example: poignant, expressive, deeply engaging. Virtually none of these entrancing numbers sound miked.

Possibly Holmes’ book relies on too many characters – Carmen, Frank, Aaron, Christopher, Bobby, Oscar, Bambi, Sidney, Daryl, etc – to make for an especially lucid plot, within the play-within-a-play element being its central feature. When they all appear poking through a dress hanger rail, or the chaps dance brilliantly on barrels, these routines are unforgettably good..

But the performances are undimmed: the strong character of Martin Callaghan’s Oscar Shapiro; the fabulous, bossy presence of Stenson’s Georgia; the lovely voice of Jason Manford’s dogged investigator Lieutenant Frank Cioffi; or the instincts (and flops) of fellow Boston Detective O’Farrell (Thomas Lee-Kidd) – as much an Inspector Clouseau as a Hercule Poirot.

Roderic Dunnett