WE LOVE A MOVIE
Performed at Luton Sixth Form College - April 2004
One of the comforting things about a Stuart Farrar compilation is that you know precisely what you are going to get. He don’t stamp the ingredients on the musical tin, but you mentally tick them off as the show progresses. A slender storyline, a smattering of familiar wisecracks, and a big bare set for emotive solos and high octane blockbusters. And all wrapped in flashy production style. It may not be subtle but it generally seems to work.
And this one, especially in the first act, worked better than most. For a start Mr Farrar and Steve Reinsford’s script had actors capable of delivering. Alan Clarke’s conniving movie mogul, and Michelle Rolt’s snappy assistant got proceedings off to a cracking start. Helen Farrar’s declining star and Steve Peters’ inadequate manager upped the action, and Richard Garrett’s hapless director added a fine dollop of gauche and toothy icing. This oblique homage to Mel Brooks ‘The Producers’ had laudable, razor sharp pace.
But these shows are not about drama. They are a flimsy excuse for songs. And in a first half only slightly marred by aimless moves, we got some crackers. Helen Farrar was superb in her rendering of As If We Never Said Goodbye, she and Elly Farrar excelled with Sondheim’s tricky Putting It Together, and Michelle Rolt did a fine job with Quiet Please, There’s A Lady On Stage. And those blockbusters from ‘A Chorus Line’ and ‘Grease’ warmed for musical energy and panache.
If things wavered in the second half we should be forgiving. The Cell Block Tango appropriately grabbed by the throat in a gritty and raunchy start, and This Is The Moment, one of the few numbers to naturally evolve from the narrative, expertly rounded things off. But in between, emotional and dramatic sub plots slowed the action and heightened the sense of shoehorned songs. In a perverse way the success of the first half of 'We Love A Movie’ crystallised the inadequacies of the second.
But if that initial promise was not sustained this was still a jollier evening than I get from better crafted musicals. Helen Farrar’s one dimensional celluloid bitch was acted with credible venom and sung with exquisite depth, Steve Peters sympathetically fleshed out an unlikely romantic foil, and Alan Clarke, desperate for movie failure, oozed vocal class. Katie Brennan’s CJ and Kate Johnson’s Marie impressed in virtually everything they did, and Eileen Kirby’s gangster shamelessly mugged with comic aplomb. And if Simon Tabert’s band was outrageously loud, it was, mercifully, also very good.
The Luton Youth of the company’s title did not get such a big chunk of the action as they do in more conventional productions but, along with One and the ‘Grease’ medley, they gave us collective artistic style with the We Love A Movie number. Desperately slipping into cliché worthy of the show itself, you could say that the individual parts of this musical compilation were greater than its theatrical sum. But then, they always are, and no less fun for all that.
Roy Hall