Guys and Dolls has triumphantly transferred from Chichester to the Savoy Theatre.We’re in New York in the late 1940s, or rather the cartoon-like version of it created by Damon Runyan who made his name by writing funny short stories about the city’s low life. Musical comedy geniuses Abe Burrows and song writer Frank Loesser have amalgamated characters and incidents from two or three of the tales into a heart-warming show that seems to capture the colour, romance and joy of retro Broadway.
Central to the plot is Nathan Detroit (played by David Hague) who makes his living from organising illegal dice games and taking a cut of the profits for his trouble. As the show opens “the heat is on” as the local police are cracking down. With high betting mobsters arriving from across America Nathan is desperate to find a secret place for the illicit gambolling. As well as dodging angry hoodlums and the cops Nathan also has to dodge his long, long term fiancé Miss Adelaide (Sophie Thompson) a cabaret performer who’s anxious to finally trap him into marriage.
One of the visiting gamblers is the handsome Sky Masterson (Jamie Parker) who’ll take a bet on anything he can win but in a rash moment he accepts the challenge of seducing a beautiful Salvation Army girl, Sarah Brown (Siubhan Harrison) and taking her to the raunchy night clubs of Havana.
Of course by the end love, marriage and happy-ever-afters prevail for all.
The show contains some of the most toe-tapping songs written for the stage including the show-stopping SIT DOWN YOU'RE ROCKING THE BOAT which the gamblers sing in a chapel to try to throw the police off their trail, then there’s LUCK BE A LADY TONIGHT which Sky sings as he’s about to risk everything on the throw of a dice. Miss Adelaide has some terrific pastiche striptease numbers which she performs as part of her act and melts our heart in the glorious ADELAIDE’S LAMENT in which she explains how waiting for marriage has made her develop the sniffles.
Then there are the gorgeous ballades which Sky and Sarah sing I’LL KNOW & I’VE NEVER BEEN IN LOVE BEFORE.
The show requires some spectacular dance routines which choreographer Andrew Wright fully delivers with input, in the Havana scene, from star Cuban dancer, Carlos Acosta.
There have been some superb revivals of the show over the past decades. Director, Richard Eyre had a smash hit with it when he ran the National Theatre and Michael Grandage successfully combined the exuberance with a darker realism. This revival doesn’t quite eclipse those legendary productions and their stars but it’s still well worth a visit for an instant shot of happiness and romance on these dark winter evenings.
Jamie Parker, who plays Sky has also been signed up to play the adult Harry Potter in the forthcoming stage sequel to the wizard franchise. Catch him here first.
I’m a huge fan of theatre productions that add a modern twist to well-known stories, making them more relevant to modern audiences. WONDER.LAND, the National Theatre’s collaboration with Daman Albarn (from the 90’s pop group Blur) could be one of these productions, however Lewis Carroll’s original Victorian tale of a girl discovering marvels beneath a rabbit hole barely survives in this digital oriented spectacle.