Crazy For You ****

It’s definitely been a while since something like this has been done: a pure – no frills – classic. Crazy For You is so familiar, yet more refreshing than most shows on at the moment in this respect that there’s been no nasty tampering. It’s as if I’ve stepped back into good old Gershwin’s day – and I wasn’t even there. You forget that timeless tunes like ‘Embraceable You’ and ‘I Got Rhythm’ all stepped out of the same man’s head, and can’t help but bow to him.

Crazy For You is packed with showgirls and smiles, you’d have felt short-changed were you to leave without a flash of jazz hands and they were most certainly shaking the show into life in the first five minutes. It’s so rare to see a dance break, to the poetic lengths of those seen in the MGM musicals, and yet Stephen Mear’s choreography is constantly vibrant; it reminds you of the escapist essence of musicals and their innocent ability to simply make you smile at those moments in life that make you break into song and dance. Although the simplicity of the production means the technical features are more decorative than anything, the filmic contrast of Peter McKintosh’s set brilliantly outlines that division between musical and reality, conjuring an earthly background for big dreams.

In the midst of the glamorous ensemble, an almost immaculately compelling unit and full of character as individuals, something sits slightly off with our ‘Fred Astaire’ and ‘Ginger Rogers’. Like a pair meant to be, Sean Palmer (Bobby Childs) might benefit from Claire Foster’s (Polly Baker) sharpness, and vice versa, Claire from her partner’s broad voice. In a show of squeaky showgirls, Claire’s southern accent is too coarse, her transition from delicate head into money notes left wanting. Despite this, these are the subtlest issues in an all-round triple threat cast, which is undeniably a momentous skill. Palmer has been blessed with the cloned genes of John Barrowman and communicates the starry eyes enamour for Broadway with the charm of a tap-dancing Cheshire cat. It should be mentioned that to stand out in a chorus this clean and frankly exhausting is something special; and Richard Jones (at least I believe this is his name, I struggled to match the face to a headshot) is most certainly that. A cheeky face in the sea of legs and teeth, that sold the innumerable dance sequences with that little bit more sparkle.


Speaking of bad jokes, yes I was just ‘crazy’ for the show. It’s full of tasteful smiles and slapstick of a bygone age; almost like recovering a little gem of a family heirloom left in the attic. ‘What Causes That?’, the duet between Palmer and David Burt (Bela Zangler) is a drunken homage to the comedy of manners device of mistaken identity. Bobby Child’s has dressed up as the music hall producer Bela Zangler in order to convince Polly that he’s not bent on repossessing her theatre but saving it. So of course when the Bela turns up (both ‘Bela’s’ drunk at this time) and meets himself, laughter ensues: “I am beside myself” - as they say to one another - with laughter.


If you’re not a Gershwin fan, or prefer les musicales miserable, you should at least go for the showgirls. You’ll have stars in your eyes.

13 ****

Imagine there’s a box. And inside that box is God. You can look inside, but be killed instantly afterwards; or live without knowing what’s waiting in the dark.

The question of this box dominates the set of Mike Bartlett’s newest play 13, in which everyone wakes up at the exact same time having had the exact same dream - or rather nightmare. At the centre of a swiftly moving re-imagining of nightmarish current events (student protests, war in the Middle East, riots), is John, a question in himself. A man who stands upon a bucket in the park preaching the power of belief, and rallying immense support as an internet sensation, Bartlett illustrates the place that social media plays in uniting our ‘protest’ generation. John (a welsh William Wallace played enigmatically by Trystan Gravelle) becomes the messiah of a new-age belief system: the power of the individual, working together for common good.

John argues that belief makes the individual and it is this multiplicity which the characters thrive upon as a unit and gives this play an incredible vivacity which absolutely captures this decade. One could argue that the cast and content is far too sprawling for any emotional engagement to leak through but the vignettes are so sophistically interwoven and extremely engaging to a relevant viewer (i.e. I could have started a student riot then and there). Bartlett’s play is one that makes you want to scream out (or like the pensioner does, throw a trolley at a bank) for the state we’re in. This is drastically contrasted with the stasis of the second half, more parliament than play, as John and the Tory Prime Minister debate the dichotomy of the country: is it right for thousands to die at war, if it will perhaps save thousands from death by nuclear weapons?

The thing hidden in the box is this grey area: the distinction between right and wrong. Mark Henderson’s moody blue lighting illustrates the dominating political backdrop throughout that is exactly that: a filter. The PM, played spot on by Geraldine James, is the manager of right and wrong, not the bringer; and must make unpopular compromises. As a reflection of this dose of reality, Thea Sharrock’s abstract conception of 13 terrifies the viewer with the idea of democracy is little more than a dream. Tom Scutt’s towering design captures the unease of events translated through the dark, hard images of insomnia. Thankfully the edgy animation of 13 reminds us that perhaps we have finally woken up and won’t let this nightmare haunt us any longer.

The artful combination of Sharrock and Bartlett is so contemporary there’s a Boris bike onstage and a pensioner singing Rhianna. 13 is simply unmissable, contextually the play of the decade.