Kelli O’Hara in The King and I at the London Palladium. Picture: Matthew Murphy
The King and I continues at the London Palladium until 29 September 2018.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
The King and I has had a makeover. In its two previous incarnations at this same theatre (1979 and 2000) it has been shackled to a degree by the copyright held by its creator Jerome Robbins which includes the 15-minute ballet in Act II, ‘The Small House of Uncle Thomas’.
His name is still there on the credits but there have been refreshing modifications under choreographer Christopher Gattelli that have given new life to such routines as‘Getting To Know You’ which had become stale with repetition.
Now song and dance follow as one, with the children led by their governess, Anna, gloriously sung in this production by Kelli O’Hara. Although a soprano, O’Hara is as adept at linking her lower voice to the preceding dialogue, making the transitions between them seamless. Her timing is impeccable and her innate dramatic instincts go some way to lighten her stilted conversations with the King, Ken Watanabe.
She is in commanding form too as the figure who defies his authority and ultimately sends him sadly to an early death. The producers have capitalised on her exceptional vocal prowess by giving her additional lyrics, not heard before, in ‘Shall I Tell You What I Think Of You?’, second only to her sublime way with ‘Hello,Young Lovers’, where she recollects her late husband and lovers worldwide.
Her reprise of that song in Act II, after witnessing the planned escape of Tuptim and Lun Tha, brought a tear to the eye and received the biggest round of applause during the evening.
I always feel rather sorry for The King. He has the least interesting songs and this one spends a lot of time shouting at Anna and his people. His dialogue doesn’t help. Hammerstein’s script comes over as awkward to deliver, the flow of the dialogue mannered, with Act I seeming to go on forever. Fortunately the music and the singers ride to the rescue, not least Rodgers’ exotic ‘March of the Royal Siamese Children’, where Anna meets the King’s children, a lovable crew!
Tuptim is sung by Na-Young Jeon. With her expressive features, often lit in pale light, and her still presence, she makes ‘My Lord and Master’ a magical moment. Later, in her duets (‘We Kiss in a Shadow’ and ‘I Have Dreamed’) her stylish way with Rodgers’ melodies shows up Dean John-Wilson’s Lun Tha, who seems out of sorts as her partner.
This King and I is blessed with another fine performance from Naoko Mori as Lady Thiang, his Chief Wife. With a twinkle in the eye she leads her ladies in a spirited ‘Western People Funny’ and finds finds an unexpected degree of pathos in ‘Something Wonderful’.
Bartlett Sher, the director, is the only name on the front of the programme except for the writers, and that is as it should be, for under his fluid direction this King and I moves with consummate ease from one scene to the next.
Sher’s eye for detail is manifest early on when Anna and Louis (Archie Durrant) find themselves threatened by a group of beggars on the quayside. In ‘Shall We Dance?’, the pillars in the ballroom glide across the stage as if caught up in that infectious polka. Nor will one forget his staging of the penultimate scene, where monks in line, dressed in white, pass a letter from the dying King to Anna, who reads it to them to a muted orchestral reprise of ‘Something Wonderful’.
Emblazoned in the London Palladium, itself a magnificent edifice, the court of Siam spills out beyond the proscenium arch, with gold dragons drawn on tall maroon coloured screens, proclaiming the opulence of this production where sets, design and costumes are a treat for the eye.
Some of that extravagance should surely have been spilt into the orchestra pit where a 17-piece band, conducted with spirit by Stephen Ridley, often sounds too few in the score’s big moments like the overture, the climax of the ‘March of the Royal Siamese Children’and above all in ‘Shall We Dance?’where the driving force of the orchestra should galvanise the audience.
On the night in question the production was given a thoroughly deserved standing ovation. It runs until 29 September but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it back again.
Adrian Edwards
Tickets for The King and I at the London Palladium are available HERE.
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