The A–Z of Mrs P – Southwark Playhouse

Michael Matus, Isy Suttie and Frances Ruffelle in The A–Z of Mrs P at the Southwark Playhouse. Picture: Roy Tan

The A–Z of Mrs P continues at the Southwark Playhouse until 29 March.

In the search for material for topics for new British musicals, some of the country’s greatest eccentrics can provide ample material. One such is Phyllis Pearsall, who created the London A-Z street atlas. The son of an immigrant Hungarian Jew and a flighty Catholic free spirit, Isy Suttie’s Phyllis flees a bad marriage to return to London, and after getting lost one day starts creating the map that will become the basis for the iconic brand.

Cartography may, in itself, seem a difficult topic for a musical, but the real subject in Diane Samuels’ libretto is Pearsall’s personality, her strained relationship with her parents and how her similarities to them – and more fundamentally, her differences – drove her to create the remarkable achievement of that first edition of the A-Z. Or at least, it should be. Like the pre-war London residents for whom Pearsall made the book, it may know where it wants to go, but it loses direction in key places.

Pearsall’s parents loom large throughout. Michael Matus plays her father Alexander (Sandor) Gross as a forceful, booming Slavic Del Boy-style entrepeneur, whose relationship with women bounces between seducing and belittling. As Pearsall’s mother Bella, Frances Ruffelle gets the opportunity to play everything from coquettish nymphette when she first meets her future husband, to devil-may-care lush perpetually running from bailiffs, to a broken woman whose alcoholism leads to incarceration and breakdown. Flashbacks to her parents’ struggles does, at times, illuminate more of Mrs P’s character. But on too many occasions, their struggles do not seem to intersect with the main story well, serving instead to compensate for a lull in excitement as Mrs P goes about her business life.

Alongside such grandiose performances, Suttie’s comparatively meek Phyllis could easily have got lost. But she brings out a warmth and vulnerability in the central character that always delights. Vocally, she may lack the belt of a typical musical theatre performer, but her delivery puts one in mind of a young Joyce Grenfell: what her voice may lack in punch, it makes up for in honesty. Her Act II duet with Stuart Matthew Price, ‘Can You Hear Me Mama?’, is a beautifully performed number that delivers the show’s biggest emotional impact.

Gwyneth Herbert’s songs dominate throughout – oddly for a musical, sometimes it feels like there are too many good ideas for songs struggling against each other at times. Of all the numbers, the aforementioned duet, the opening ‘Best Foot Forward’ and the comedic representation of Pearsall’s attempts at door-to-door selling in ‘I Am a Representative’ are the most memorable.

As the musical draws to a close, it is once again the larger-than-life father figure of Sandor Gross who dominates both the stage and the story. And that is a shame, for it feels that far from being The A-Z of Mrs P, we are all too often stuck in Mr G’s tale. As such, this musical loses its way – but getting lost is what got Mrs P on the right track, and I’m sure the same will happen here to this promising new work.

Scott Matthewman

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