Guildford School of Acting – Twang!!

Guildford School of Acting’s third-year musical theatre graduates present Twang!! at the Ivy Arts Centre, Guildford

Twang!! performed by Guildford School of Acting’s third-year musical theatre graduates at the Ivy Arts Centre, Guildford, Surrey, until 9 November.

Any connection between the newly-minted version of Lionel Bart’s gigantic 1965 flop Twang!! and a sane, normal evening at the theatre is purely coincidental… but it is tremendous fun.

The double exclamation mark in the title suggests we are not in for a night of Shakespearean depth and, sure enough, Julian Woolford’s new book, with additional music and vocal arrangements from Richard John, is a right load of cobblers – but in the nicest possible way.

The original show lasted just six weeks, was crucified by the critics and played to mostly empty houses at the Shaftesbury Theatre. The musicians stopped the show by taking the music home with them until they got paid, which they didn’t, and there were constant revisions of the script which left the cast – including James Booth, Barbara Windsor and Ronnie Corbett (who contributes the recorded scene-setting intro to this revival) – not knowing what they were coming in to each day, and Bart lost his considerable fortune trying to save it.

The story of how Robin Hood lost his twang – that’s what happens when you draw the bow back but the arrow doesn’t fire – and can only get it back with the help of Maid Marian’s love, is a front for a stream of nudge-nudge, wink-wink innuendo, some electrifying dancing and a showcase for the triple-threat talents of Guildford School of Acting’s third-year musical theatre graduates.

The bar is set very high at GSA where past alumni include Michael Ball, Bill Nighy and Brenda Blethyn, as well as the last two winners of the prestigious Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year competition, Kris Olsen and Turlough Convery. For one school of learning to win a nationwide contest of such magnitude in consecutive years is astonishing, and there is little doubt that many of the 21-strong cast we saw here will make a living at this game.

Bart’s songs are not his best, but they are tuneful enough. The more forgettable ones have been jettisoned and two of his biggest 1950s hits, ‘Living Doll’ (the first of Cliff Richard’s 14 chart-toppers) and ‘A Handful of Songs’, which reached No. 5 for Tommy Steele, brought in to beef things up.

Because it fits in so nicely in the finale, a place has also been found for a real curio, ‘Happy Endings’, the TV jingle Bart wrote for Abbey National towards the end of his career, while  John has contributed the show’s one new number, ‘Silver Arrow’, which makes for a strong team piece in Act II.

Ben Carruthers makes a dashing and tuneful Robin Hood, Jessica Hern is a sweet-voiced Marian and Eleanor Chaganis plays the Barbara Windsor tart-with-a-heart role with Cockney gusto and some tremendous tap-dancing skills.

Camp is very much the order of the day with Will Cousins’ Will Scarlett out-camping Christian Lunn’s hilarious Sheriff of Nottingham, and Jordan Livesey’s sneaky Prince John is not far behind.

Codpieces are the butt of some serious double entendres, although Patrick Barrett’s exotic contraption as Sir Guy surely owes much to wishful thinking, while there is a rather naughty scene involving the unbuckling of chastity belts.

Behind all this tosh, Woolford has created a historical homage to musical theatre and there’s great fun to be had in spotting all the musicals that he has given a nod or snippet to.

Sharper, younger ears may be able to list more, but I found Cabaret, West Side Story, Chorus Line, Wicked, Les Mis, My Fair Lady, Chicago, Legally Blonde, Company, Sweeney Todd and The Sound of Music and was that a smidgen of Gilbert & Sullivan I detected?

‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ – Bryan Adams’ Grammy Award-winner for the film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves – was even included. Clever Mr Woolford, a GSA lecturer and a man so besotted by musical theatre that he wrote a book on it last year entitled How Musicals Works – And How To Write Your Own.

The very experienced Ian Talbot, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre’s artistic director for two decades up to 2007, handles a super-busy madhouse of a stage with, as you would expect, cool assurance, MD Oli Jackson’s band of four are always on the money, Kenn Oldfield’s elaborate choreography is a joy to behold, and the energy levels of this vibrant, confident young cast so exhausting to watch that I needed to lie down in a darkened room afterwards.

One thing’s for sure: there’s no danger of anybody nodding off.

Jeremy Chapman

Out East, Up West: A Lionel Bart Symposium takes place on Friday 8 November (2–6pm): an afternoon of talks and discussion on themes related to the work of Lionel Bart, Joan Littlewood and Twang!!, featuring special guest Barbara Windsor who appeared in the original London cast of Twang!! Further details are available at gsauk.org.