A CHORUS LINE
We’re in an empty Broadway theatre in the mid-1970s, although, in truth, it’s any theatre, anywhere, at any time. Here are 20 or so young hopefuls, keen – in some cases, desperate – to be picked for the chorus line of a new stage musical.
The unforgiving director, Zach (John Partridge, himself a dyed-in-the-wool musical theatre man, but best known as gay Christian in EastEnders) is putting the auditionees through their paces. A handful are quickly eliminated, and then he must whittle down the nine women and eight men to four of each. Even from the back of the royal circle, you can almost smell the fear.
A Chorus Line first opened on Broadway in 1975 and ran for 15 years. Now it has been revived at the London Palladium, and any worries that it might seem a little hackneyed are quickly dispelled: its very timelessness means it comes up bandbox fresh.
But then this is a very good production, not only slick but beautifully choreographed, even when the troupe aren’t dancing. Michael Bennett’s original conceit is a clever one. By the end of the show, we see a meticulously disciplined company moving and singing in perfect synchronicity and yet, by then, we’ve come to know them all as individuals.
There’s world-weary Sheila (sassy Leigh Zimmerman), who, when asked what she wants to be when she grows up, replies with just one word: ‘Young’. There’s sweet Puerto Rican Paul (Gary Wood), who relives the agonising moment his parents discovered his drag act and who only ever wanted to be Cyd Charisse.
Best of all, there’s Diana (Victoria Hamilton-Barritt), racked with self-doubt in her solo, Nothing, and plaintively recalling what might have been in the poignant What I Did For Love, perhaps the best song in Marvin Hamlisch’s superior score, even if it’s slightly out of kilter with the show’s central thrust.
Finally, there’s Cassie (superb Scarlett Strallen), once a featured Broadway player and now forced to audition for the chorus. She all but stops the show with her solo turn in The Music And The Mirror, before we discover that she and Zach have a back story that explains their edgy relationship.
At one point, one of the auditioning hopefuls speaks for the rest when he says the line with which they are all most familiar in the dole queue: ‘Not on this showing.’
Until 18 January at the London Palladium, 8 Argyll Street, London W1: 0844-412 2957, www.londonpalladium.org
The unforgiving director, Zach (John Partridge, himself a dyed-in-the-wool musical theatre man, but best known as gay Christian in EastEnders) is putting the auditionees through their paces. A handful are quickly eliminated, and then he must whittle down the nine women and eight men to four of each. Even from the back of the royal circle, you can almost smell the fear.
A Chorus Line first opened on Broadway in 1975 and ran for 15 years. Now it has been revived at the London Palladium, and any worries that it might seem a little hackneyed are quickly dispelled: its very timelessness means it comes up bandbox fresh.
But then this is a very good production, not only slick but beautifully choreographed, even when the troupe aren’t dancing. Michael Bennett’s original conceit is a clever one. By the end of the show, we see a meticulously disciplined company moving and singing in perfect synchronicity and yet, by then, we’ve come to know them all as individuals.
There’s world-weary Sheila (sassy Leigh Zimmerman), who, when asked what she wants to be when she grows up, replies with just one word: ‘Young’. There’s sweet Puerto Rican Paul (Gary Wood), who relives the agonising moment his parents discovered his drag act and who only ever wanted to be Cyd Charisse.
Best of all, there’s Diana (Victoria Hamilton-Barritt), racked with self-doubt in her solo, Nothing, and plaintively recalling what might have been in the poignant What I Did For Love, perhaps the best song in Marvin Hamlisch’s superior score, even if it’s slightly out of kilter with the show’s central thrust.
Finally, there’s Cassie (superb Scarlett Strallen), once a featured Broadway player and now forced to audition for the chorus. She all but stops the show with her solo turn in The Music And The Mirror, before we discover that she and Zach have a back story that explains their edgy relationship.
At one point, one of the auditioning hopefuls speaks for the rest when he says the line with which they are all most familiar in the dole queue: ‘Not on this showing.’
Until 18 January at the London Palladium, 8 Argyll Street, London W1: 0844-412 2957, www.londonpalladium.org