Royal Academy of Music – Working

Picture: Marc Brenner

Working, performed by the Royal Academy of Music’s Musical Theatre Company and Orchestra, continues at the Susie Sainsbury Theatre, London until 17 June 2018.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

Working is a strange show. Based on interviews by American journalist Studs Terkel with ordinary people from all walks of life, it consists of a series of unrelated monologues and songs.

Plot-less and with little in the way of cohesion it is part revue, part concert and feels oddly like a student showcase at times. In fact, I’m sure many of these numbers will soon find their way into student showcases if they haven’t already. Some of them would make useful audition pieces too.

That said, it includes some quite imaginatively choreographed (Aline David) use of ensemble to back soloists and provide visual interest.

The final number ‘Something to Point To’ (Craig Carnelia) brings everyone together but the whole show still seems very disparate.

Within it, though, are some pretty talented individuals about to graduate from this, the Royal Academy’s post-graduate course in musical theatre.

Emma Harvey, for example, delights as a housewife hanging out washing. Her excellent rendering of Carnelia’s ‘Just a Housewife’ is effective because it’s understated and rueful.

Mhairi Angus really moved me (because as a former teacher myself I identified with every word of this Mary Rodgers/Susan Birkenhead number) as a teacher nearing retirement and despairing over the changes in behaviour and attitude which now make her work almost impossible. Angus sings her 3|4 song with a cheery lilt and then deepens and coarsens it when she gets anguished.

I loved the duet between Maya Britto and Jeffrey Chekai (nicely modulated tenor) as two different sorts of carers too. ‘A Very Good Day’ (Lin-Manuel Miranda) makes some powerful points about why people turn their dependents over to professionals and it’s quite special.

So is ‘Fathers and Sons’ by Stephen Schwartz in which the singer/narrator reflects on how he wants a better life for his son that he’s had himself. Nicholas Carter’s rendering of it is moving.

Show stealer Nesah Gonzales takes up the same theme in ‘Cleaning Women’ by Micki Grant. She scrubs floors but wants her daughter to go to college. Then she turns to the pit (fine five-piece band), demands some gospel and, transforms Cinderella-like into a gold party dress, launching into a rather fabulous dance number.

Full marks, incidentally, to the uncredited voice coach who must have worked on this show. Characters are meant to have come from all over the USA and the nuances of the regional accents are very convincing.

It’s a reasonably entertaining 105 minutes but Working is a long way from what we usually recognise as musical theatre.

Arguably it isn’t a bad choice in this context, though. Given the high level of talent in the company this rather odd structure ensures that almost everyone gets a solo and that there’s plenty for everyone to do.

Susan Elkin