Strike Up the Band – Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Picture: Andreas Lambis

Strike Up the Band continues at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London until 31 March 2019.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

Barely two months after the excellent in-house production of Nice Work If You Can Get It, Gershwin is already alive again with the sound of his glorious music, as played by a wonderful band directed by Bobby Goulder.

To say that the orchestra is the best part of the show would not be bad criticism, as, like in most 20s musicals the score transcends the book by a long distance. It is called Strike Up the Band after all. How could a musical with such timeless tunes as ‘The Man I Love’ and ‘I’ve Got a Crush On You’ go wrong?

Well, probably by mixing love and war with cheese! Would the US invade Switzerland because of a trade dispute over imported cheese? That’s the question the George S. Kaufman book is asking in its complicated plot involving a scheming cheese factory owner eager to destroy his rivals, a snooping newspaperman, a pliable presidential advisor, a couple of spies and no fewer than three love stories.

Clearly the satire of 1927 America as a country of political corruption, with a business tycoon waging a war against a barely armed opponent, was clearly ahead of its time – and curiously relevant of more recent events. But however daring the contents may be, its form remains old-fashioned and overlong, crying out for some edits.

Some Broadway legend claimed that satire was meant to close on opening night, probably Stephen Sondheim, who experienced just that with Anyone Can Whistle, one of Broadway’s most legendary flops. The original 1927 production of Strike Up the Band folded after only a few days. The less political 1930 revision lasted a little longer on the Great White Way and the Judy Garland /Mickey Rooney movie merely took the title and a few songs from the original show.

Pleasantly directed by Marc Giesser, with too little dancing choreographed by Orley Quick, this production is so faithful to the original that it blatantly shows off its weaknesses and reminds us of the fact that so many successful revivals like the Gershwins’ Crazy For You and Nice Work If You Can Get It and Cole Porter’s Anything Goes have undergone such major overhauls that they are more works using song catalogues woven into lighter and funnier books than actual revivals.

This Strike Up the Band re-creation in its original form and content is interesting merely for its historical relevancy and for its youthful talented cast headed by Richard Emerson, Beth Burrows, Paul Biggin and Pippa Winslow.

It deserves to be seen at the Gatehouse, however, if only for the greatness of its score, so well sung and played as is always the case in this venue.

Patrick Honoré