Puttin' on the Ritz - Theatre Royal
A note to the unwary – at one point Jazz happened.
Hello, my name is James and I love musicals. No, I mean it. I really love musicals. I love them more than Alexander Salmond loves resigning. My love has only one omission – jukebox musicals. So what better to see than Puttin’ on the Ritz, a collection of songs from the Golden Age of Hollywood?
The stars were out that night (in the LED ceiling of the auditorium) and the foyer beforehand was filled with the excited chattering of false teeth. The show was introduced as a highlights reel of three composers, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. Mr Berlin composed the titular song in 1929 but it only recently came to prominence in an advertising campaign for McDonalds. Despite being pressganged into the service of the golden arches the number still had toes tapping and false hips popping with delight.
Like the original Hollywood of the 1930’s and 40’s, the outward show of opulence on stage tried to mask a slightly cheap and insubstantial construction beneath. It was a conquest of artifice over reality as the spectacle is filtered through a gauze of altogether too much glitter. After the female dancers were twirled for a few minutes, their dresses began to shed feathers; this mixed with the glitter began to make the dirty stage floor appear as a most fabulous abattoir.
The songs of the night were from a time when girls had posters of Fred Astaire and not The One Directions on their bedroom walls. Unfortunately, at points, the dancers lacked the sharp precision of the greats like Gene Kelly (particularly with props) … but I imagine none of them made Debbie Reynolds dance until her feet bled so they probably have some kind of moral victory. Pleasingly, the performers excelled when allowed to cut loose in numbers such as ‘Another Op'nin', Another Show’ (a song written just before the apostrophe rationing of the late 1940’s).
Despite some flaws, and despite myself, I was dragged along in a wave of nostalgia for a period I have only experienced through a cinema screen. Our collective cultural memories are irrevocably coloured by this medium as we continue to rewrite our past so perhaps it was fitting that the show echoed the plasterboard lavishness of the time so well.
A note to the unwary – at one point Jazz happened. Fortunately I am fluent in scat (grow up) and was able to translate for my companion.
