Lisa Stokke in The World Goes ‘Round at the Union Theatre, London. Picture: Roy Tan
The World Goes ‘Round: The Songs of Kander & Ebb continues at the Union Theatre, London until 8 February.
You’d have to be seriously allergic to musicals not to enjoy this tuneful retrospective of the work of those Broadway giants John Kander and Fred Ebb, famous, of course, for Cabaret and Chicago as well as that anthem to the Big Apple, ‘New York, New York’.
An eclectic mix of love songs, torch songs and wry, comic songs, many of them from their lesser-known shows, The World Goes ‘Round was first conceived by Scott Ellis, Susan Stroman and David Thompson as an Off-Broadway revue that ran for a year from 1991-2, and here is given a spirited make-over by the inventive director/designer Kirk Jameson, choreographer Sam Spencer-Lane and a cast of ten – five experienced singers and five sexy young dancers – four of whom are making their pro debuts at the tiny, cash-strapped Union Theatre not far from Waterloo.
Unlike the Sondheim equivalent, Putting It Together, coincidentally playing at the same time at the St James Theatre, there is no flimsy storyline binding the songs together, nor is one needed as all 28 of them are miniature comedy-dramas in themselves, revealing character and story by deftly balancing tune, text and subtext.
Simon Green, Gareth Snook, Lisa Stokke, Emma Francis and Susan Fay have all been around the block a few times and know exactly how to put a song over and work together as a team.
Snook’s ‘Mr Cellophane’ (Chicago) catches both the humour and the pathos of the song, Fay’s ‘My Colouring Book’ (an early Streisand success) is perfectly pitched and lovely to listen to, and the immaculate Green makes the straw hat and cane props work with him in ‘Sara Lee’, a kitschy number about snack food love, as well as extracting all the drama from ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’.
The sinewy Francis makes the sassy ‘Class’ (again from Chicago) sizzle with lyrics perhaps even more pertinent today than when Ebb wrote them: “Whatever happened to ‘Please, may I’? And ‘Yes, thank you’? And ‘How charming’? and “Now no one even says ‘Oops’ when they’re passing their gas”.
But the real showstoppers come from Stokke, back at this friendly fringe theatre where she played the title role in The Baker’s Wife so winningly in 2011.
Her beautiful ‘A Quiet Thing’ (Flora, the Red Menace) demands to be heard, but not before she has to get down to the bare essentials for that sly ode to midday adultery ‘Arthur in the Afternoon’, written for her idol (and Kander & Ebb’s favourite) Liza Minnelli in The Act, a 1977 musical destined to be doomed because of the eccentric behaviour of its troubled star.
It is a mystery that even Miss Marple would be hard-pressed to solve as to why, after early success as the first Sophie in the original Mamma Mia! in 1999, Stokke, with the lilting musicality of her voice matched only by the radiance of her smile, has not been snapped up for a string of West End shows. She is little short of a legend in her native Norway where she has recently done the Ann Reinking role in Annie and voiced the Idina Menzel numbers for the Norwegian version of Frozen, the best Disney movie for many a year.
Elliot Berry dances up a storm as Arthur the stud to Stokke’s eager-to-disrobe housewife in The Act episode and all the young ensemble – Shahail Woodcock, Charlotte Oakley, Gabrielle Allen and Genevieve Leeney – deserve positive mentions. Working at the Union will not make them rich, but the experience and advice they get from their stint among top-class creatives and singers who have been there, done it and got the T-shirts is beyond price.
Director Jameson and choreographer Spencer-Lane make brilliant and dramatic use of the small space with their dancers and singers clad mainly in Chicago-style black, Tom Boucher’s clever lighting is incredibly atmospheric, and MD Michael Riley ploughs a lone furrow with great style on the piano.
Rounding off the show with those mega-hits, ‘Cabaret’ – from what may just be the best musical ever written and certainly the most thought-provoking – and a cheekily multi-lingual ‘New York, New York’, sends an appreciative audience off with a warm glow into a chill January night. The only complaint: the songs are named but not the shows they come from. A more informative programme would have been a great help, especially for newer Kander & Ebb fans.
Jeremy Chapman
Readers may also be interested in:
The World Goes ‘Round – Interview with Lisa Stokke and Simon Green
Putting It Together – St James Theatre
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