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Twist and shout to Sixties toe-tappers
SHOUT
ArtsTheatre
MARIJUANA – check, permissive behaviour – check, monochrome fashion – check. Every element of the Swinging Sixties is present in Shout! a compilation musical about three northern girls who move to London at the start of the decade.
Unfortunately, Ruby (Marissa Dunlop), Betty (Shona White) and Georgina (Tiffany Graves) find themselves in not-so-swinging south London, where Ruby’s aunt Yvonne (Su Pollard) owns “the most luxurious hair salon in all of Peckham”. It’s hardly Carnaby Street.
Packing in more than 30 songs there’s little room for a plot, but nobody seems to mind as the show bounces along, sandwiching a scant script between toe-tapping favourites, drawing heavily on the back catalogues of the British 60s songstresses.
I rather enjoyed trying to second guess whether we were due for some Dusty or poised for some Petula from the sudden swerves in dialogue.
Much of the humour is straight out of one of Pollard’s old Perry & Croft sitcoms, but it’s her vocals that left me open-jawed. It’s easy to forget Pollard was a West End singer before she became a comedy actress, and though she’s not quite as sprightly as she once was, she still has a spine-tingling voice. An emotional rendition of You’re My World brings some depth to a fairly superficial show but more character development is needed to back it up.
Indeed, the vocals are where this production excels. Graves as leggy blonde Georgina has a truly powerful voice which doesn’t need the amplification it gets, whilst White as hapless Betty has an impressive, soulful tone.
Adverts, provided by John Jack, for everything from tinned food to The Pill provide plenty of comic interludes.
It all ends with a stand up singalong, which the Baby Boomer audience relished, just be prepared for some seriously embarrassing dad-dancing down in the stalls.
Until June 28
0845 017 5584 |
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