Greg Oliver and Sarah Watson in The Prodigals at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. Picture: Keith Pattison
The Prodigals continues at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry until 14 September.
For a production presented in conjunction with Ray Goudie’s company Inspire Arts Trust, and one with press material that maintains it is ‘a musical whose time has come’, I did find myself anything but inspired by The Prodigals.
The writers offer a perfectly good justification for ‘updating’ the New Testament story of the Prodigal Son (for which read tearaway, ne’er-do-well, spendthrift) which is a desire to address serious issues: war, especially the Afghanistan conflict, and drug abuse.
However, no defence is needed for the update, it’s a neat idea with potential, except that, as can be the danger with musicals which mistake the sentimental for the serious, it doesn’t actually address anything, apart from the insistence that family ties should hold no matter what, which is really rather well dealt with.
As in the original, we meet a man whose two sons tread different paths. The father, Colonel Luke Gibson (well-known West End performer Simon Bowman who eclipses the singing of everyone else by the end of the evening), is at a loss to cope with his wayward, pop star-wannabe younger son Kyle (Greg Oliver).
Kyle is a drug user and contributes zero (to the family’s military prowess), while older brother Mike (Sam Ferriday) serves as his father’s adjutant and singlehandedly runs the regiment.
Neither son is that cleverly evoked, though Ferriday does better vocally and has a distinct authority to match his fraternal resentment. Oliver captures Kyle’s utter uselessness alongside his incipient talent (he briefly makes it as a pop star).
The latter’s relationship with fellow crooner Kelly (Sarah Watson) is pretty vapidly drawn, replete with cliché, so the Greek chorus-style ensemble’s censure that he has caused her death gets a bit monotonous.
The music, a farrago (five contributors, including Goudie himself, are credited) verges on platitude, but the arrangements (Matt Smith and a team of five) are very well thought through and instrumented. Indeed three or four numbers, including Kyle’s, are touching and affecting, while the awesomely experienced Bowman, though variable or unconvincing when saddled with a clunky script, hits the solar plexus in his big musical outpourings. He provides the passion.
The able support team are more dancers than actors. Co-ordinated group sequences (Natalie Murdoch) are brilliant: Omarie Bernard’s energised Disco shines out, James William Marshall’s memorable Scottish Sergeant MacMorris is magnificent and a trio of fab gyrating temptresses – Cheryl, Beryl and Ethel – are a joy every time they appear, like the three ladies from Mozart’s The Magic Flute or Wagner’s Norns.
Credit goes to co-writer Joe Harmston’s direction, although the staging can sometimes appear unadventurous. Honours really rather go to Sean Cavanagh’s set (inside of Afghan camp bunker, etc), while Ben Cracknell’s lighting is fabulous and a key factor in those parts of the musical that actually succeed, and even some that don’t.
While the 19 numbers and two reprises are listed in the programme, credits for those singing them are not which is a drawback for any local audience like the Belgrade’s. An error to avoid in the future.
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