Performance Preparation Academy – Zorba

Zorba by Performance Preparation Academy at Eve Lyons Theatre, Guildford.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 

What a find Zorba is! Kander and Ebb’s 1968 musical – more a play with music – never made it to the West End and had been gathering dust until PPA’s third-year students have done it proud at their cosy in-house theatre in Guildford.

Under the inspired direction of Lewis Butler and Nick Charters, a huge cast brings the story of Zorba the Greek, remembered for the charismatic movie performances of Anthony Quinn and Oscar winner Lila Kedrova, vividly to life.

The film came out in 1964 and the stage musical hit Broadway four years later to a mixed reception. With a suicide, a murder and (spoiler alert) the death of the leading lady, it was too dark for some tastes. 

But they tried again with it in 1983, this time with Quinn and Kedrova reprising their movie roles. That too didn’t work, the show failing to return its investment. It didn’t help that Quinn’s singing voice made even Lee Marvin sound like Pavarotti. Kedrova, a great French actress but no vocalist, was little better.

The UK didn’t fancy it at all. A 1973 London Fringe production at Greenwich starring Alfred Marks and Miriam Karlin hoped for a West End transfer but folded after just 23 performances. After that, nothing, in 46 years nothing.

But its big cast suits PPA, the score, although without any hit numbers like Cabaret or Chicago, an unappreciated gem, a Fiddler On the Roof sort of show – Joseph Stein wrote the book for both – although the Cretan villagers are colder and more threatening than the Jews of Anatevka.

The story focuses on the friendship that evolves after complex Jack-of-all-trades Zorba and Nikos, a young American who has inherited an abandoned mine on Crete, meet in a cafe in Piraeus and their romantic relationships with a local widow and a coquettish Frenchwoman no longer in her prime but still a player when it comes to snaring lovers and a husband.

The crowd scenes in Piraeus and in the town square in Crete are thrillingly vibrant, almost making the audience believe they are there, and the ensemble dancing, wonderfully choreographed by Butler, disciplined, dramatic and joyous.

The Greek music, played on bazouki, mandolin, guitar, flute, keyboard and drums by a band of five under MD Kevin Oliver Jones, soars and sizzles. And the songs, the songs! Ebb never wrote a bad lyric and this is magical stuff.

‘The Butterfly’ is totally beautiful, the naughty ‘No Boom Boom’ and ‘Goodbye, Canavaro’ both killingly funny, and the anthem that opens and closes the show ‘Life is… what you do while you’re waiting to die’ turns and twirls in your head for hours.

There’s the exciting ‘Zorba’s Dance’ to savour and no end of other good numbers like ‘Only Love’, ‘The Bend of the Road’ and Zorba’s parting song ‘I’m Free’ to his friend Nikos before they go their separate ways.

Two sets of casts, changing all the main parts to give more students a chance to shine, each do three performances and I was lucky enough to see both in action on consecutive days. It was no hardship.

Both teams shine but Tommy Pegg’s Zorba is outstanding, husky-voiced, with great timing and a strong stage presence. He has all the tools for a successful career. If Pegg is a hard act to follow, Jack Stark is right up to the challenge.

The two Madame Hortenses, Caitlin Wineyard and Charlie Clay, are captivating and funny with lovely expressions, and Jed Hoyle and Killian Lefevre sing well and make fine jobs of mine owner Nikos.

Molly Scanes and Mia Richards are both moving as the Widow, with Richards particularly effective in the murder scene, while the Leader (a sort of narrator who set the scene and rounded off the tale) shows off the crystal-clear voices of Daisy Loving and Justine Saville.

The Four Admirals, Samuel Quick, Edoardo Pallanca, Billy Thompson and Cameron Jacob Foster, also deserve a mention for their hilarious, fully synchronised facial expressions but this, above all, was a great team effort.

A word here for voice and accent coach Carla Collins who had everyone singing off the same hymn sheet. The accents and word stresses could not be faulted, from biggest part to smallest. Good set and costume design too from Mila Sanders in what was nothing short of a triumph.

Jeremy Chapman