Dames at Sea was performed by Performance Preparation Academy students at Bellerby Studio Theatre, Guildford.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
It took Dames at Sea 49 years to get from the 50-minute sketch with a cast of six at an Off-Off Broadway coffee house to a fully-cast Broadway premiere in 2015.
London saw it first in 1969 when it settled into the Duchess Theatre for 127 performances and again in 1989.
Here the third years of Guildford’s Performance Preparation Academy, under director Lewis Butler, brilliant choreographer Sarah Day and 2014 PPA graduate Edward Court’s musical direction, put their own spin on a small-scale show and turn it into a feast of tap dancing from an all-girl ensemble of 14 to wrap around a story that isn’t a million miles away from 42nd Street.
Written by George Haimsohn, Jim Wise and Robin Miller, it parodies the lavish Busby Berkeley movie musicals of the 1930s and even has a heroine called Ruby, recalling that it was Ruby Keeler who made her name as the ingenue in the 1933 film of 42nd Street.
On stage in 1966 it was Bernadette Peters whose career was launched as Ruby, a sweet innocent from the sticks, this time Utah, stepping out from chorus line to stardom when the temperamental leading lady, the well-named Mona, gets seasick at rehearsals.
The show has had to be transferred to a ship after the sudden closure of the theatre, a highly improbable move organised by songwriting sailor Dick who has so impressed Mona with a number he has written called ‘It’s You’ that she incorporates it into the show and who Ruby has fallen for.
With songs mostly pinched from other shows and reworded that are serviceable rather than memorable – the pastiche of ‘Raining in My Heart’ and torch song ‘That Mister of Mine’ work best – it is a musical comedy that doesn’t have enough laughs.
It is a harmless couple of hours spent admiring the triple threat talents of the principals and the tap dancing dexterity of the gorgeously costumed (PPA co-founder Louise Pieri, as always, bang on the mark with the outfits) chorus girls.
Jack Osmond as Dick sets the tone with some superb tap; cute Beth Lyons has a lovely unforced mezzo and winsome facial expressions as Ruby; Clare McCreadie displays a great throaty belt and stage presence as diva Mona, a right madam who softens and gets her man, the ship’s captain (Jordan Harrison), in the end; and Hannah Merry excels in a quieter way as Joan, who ends up with Dick’s sailor pal Lucky (Jordan Newman).
The three female leads are played by Natalie Turner, Ashleigh Domblides and Mared Lewis at four of the eight performances to make use of the entire graduation team. I was sorry not to see them.
A little tap goes a long way with me and this is a show where there’s plenty of it, all licked into shape in Day’s choreography and by Court’s six-piece band, but the standard is high.
In my seven years of reviewing musical theatre students, the biggest improvement has been the strength in depth of a show like this with a cast of 21.
In the old days you might see three or four with star potential but equally a good few you knew would struggle to make a living at the game. The general level is far sharper now.
Anyway, a visit to the theatre is not just about the show, and you come away from this Academy feeling the love from principal Pieri and her team. In ten short years they have achieved a great deal.
Their little in-house theatre, situated in a business park in one of Guildford’s least-lovely roads, is homely rather than flash, but from the moment you speak to the charming staff member at the box office to the student manning the coffee shop, to the offer of help to get you up the stairs, to the team showing you to your seat, to the two cushions on that seat (because I’d written last year how uncomfortable they were!), to the staff’s rapport with cast and audience, you sense in the warmth of the welcome they want you to have the best time you could possibly have.
We look forward to seeing these third years again next year with better material, the Dolly Parton musical 9 to 5 and The Producers. This is a good start.
Jeremy Chapman
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