Mob Wife: A Mafia Comedy at The Cockpit, London
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
Imagine The Godfather without the gory bits and with lots of songs and you’re in this musical “in development” with book by Corey Skaggs and music and lyrics by Michael Mott.
Both men were there to take the adulation at the performance I attended. At the end they explained to the audience that the show has grown from the germ of an idea in 2015 to a fortnight’s workshopping it with Starbuck Theatre Company at The Cockpit before this short run.
There are now plans to tighten, change and develop it still further and I can confirm that it’s definitely a piece with potential.
We’re on Staten Island where Tony Delbono (Matt Bond) is the newly appointed Mafia Captain. He seems to have been cheating on his wife Debra (Ashleigh Aston) but Daisy (Sarah Pavlovs) the girl he’s been seeing has also, apparently, been seeing another man. So if she’s pregnant…? It’s – err – complicated.
Bond is a very powerful singer – with a fabulous falsetto full belt – and finds all the truculence Tony needs before eventually softening into a rather nicer guy.
And Aston, in the biggest role as Debra is very good indeed – a richly accomplished singer and a convincing actor. The scenes she does with her vulgar, excessive friend Joanne (Dru Stephenson) work particularly well.
There are ten people in this cast with various little subplots weaving underneath the main story. They are all pretty strong but Daniel Nicholas stands out as the young, naïve, hilarious Nico racing offstage fumbling with his trousers whenever he’s stressed.
And the 6/8 number ‘The Rules of the Game’ in which Joanne seduces Nico, while her equally unfaithful husband Marino (Alex Wadham) sings in duet with her from elsewhere on stage, is one of the best songs in the piece: slick, witty, melodious and memorable.
A four-piece band (all playing off music on iPads) led by MD Dan Tomkinson is behind a screen but clearly visible from the sides of The Cockpit’s seating area. Attractive orchestrations are thoughtfully played.
I await the next incarnation of this show with interest.
Susan Elkin
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