Picture: Colin Allen
Working – A Musical continues at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London until 22 September 2019.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
In 1974, Chicago historian and broadcaster Studs Terkel published the results of dozens of interviews with “common” folk and gave it the least sexy title imaginable, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.
It didn’t sound promising as the subject for a musical but four years later Stephen Schwartz adapted the book in collaboration with Nina Faso and turned it into a Broadway show with contributions by a number of distinguished songwriters, among them rock‘n’roll legend James Taylor, musical theatre royalty in the shape of Richard Rodgers’ daughter Mary, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant and Susan Birkenhead.
Shortening the title simply to Working, it didn’t find an audience and closed after 24 performances even with a young Patti LuPone in the cast.
Revised several times by Schwartz and with two additional songs by a pre-Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda, including an absolute corker in ‘A Very Good Day’, it took almost 40 years to arrive in the UK and was not performed here professionally until its short run at Southwark Playhouse two years ago.
Now here it is again, put on by a young company called Hi Impact at the Gatehouse in lovely Highgate Village (one of the few Fringe theatres with comfortable seats!) and a right good job they have made of it.
A team of eight took on 25 different roles, from fast-food worker, to schoolteacher, a waitress who turns her menial job into an art, to prostitute who found early in life she could make “$500 in 20 minutes by doing nothing” and a retiree wondering how he’s going to fill his day without a job to go to.
He laments that sometimes he has a good idea in one room but has forgotten what it was when he gets to the next (join the club, mate!).
The list goes on and on… a very Jewish PR man worrying he has nothing of substance to leave the world, a fireman happy he changed careers because saving lives makes him feel worthier, the care worker, the fundraiser, right down to the cleaner and ‘Just A Housewife’.
‘Housewife’ is an affecting composition from the pen of Craig Carnelia, also responsible for ‘Joe’, ‘The Mason’ and the rousing finale ‘Something To Point To’, celebrating that every job, however dull and repetitive, plays its part in making America the diverse centre of creativity, graft and political mayhem that it is.
And the hankies are out again for a moving Schwartz take on the ‘Fathers and Sons’ relationship – “I hadn’t learned/How little time it takes/And everybody breaks/And daddies make mistakes…” and, from toddler days, “We’d laugh at some new word he said/How tough you were to get to bed/and we’d plan the night away/Planning for our kid…”
Credit to all eight actors who sing nicely and throw themselves wholeheartedly into their multiple roles. Having decent songs to get stuck into is always a help and there are some belters among the 14 in Working. With so many different songwriting styles and rhythms, there is always the chance of too many cooks spoiling the broth but they stitch together seamlessly.
Particularly impressive are Lara Beth-Sas’ housewife, Mikey Wooster’s old Joe, Hannah Cheetham’s teacher and do-good fundraiser and Kris Marc-Joseph’s ‘Fathers And Sons’
But there isn’t a weak link and Ryan Owen, Laura Allen, Makeda Ansah and Shivam V Patel play their part in a fine team effort, pulled together by director/choreographer Amanda Noar. Allen multi-tasks as actor, singer, co-choreographer and co-producer.
The standing ovation from a packed Gatehouse audience on press night was well deserved.
Emily Megson’s set design is functional rather than a thing of beauty with steel girders cleverly turning into eight cubicles, one for each performer, and the wide variety of material is confidently handled by the band of four led by musical director Jamie Noar on keys (Fraser Pearce on bass, Nick Granville on guitar, Tonna Punn on drums).
It’s a different sort of show, a fascinating glimpse of real-life working-class America, but well worth a visit even if mine ended with a frightening walk down 113 twisting stairs to the platform at Archway Station because the escalator was out of service. 113 was roughly the age I felt at the end of it!
Jeremy Chapman
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