23 Jul 2015: If you’re looking to have a splashing good time, check out this West End smash hit – it’s almost impossible not to come out of the theatre grinning
★★★★☆
As the stage version of Gene Kelly’s beloved film Singin’ in the Rain splish-splashes into town, we went into the theatre expecting a good time. And we weren’t disappointed. A gorgeous flurry of colour, humour and upbeat tunes, it’s the kind of show that checks all the feel-good boxes and urges you to leave your worries at the door.
Set in the ’20s, the show opens at the premiere of a silent movie, starring Don Lockwood (Duane Alexander) and Lina Lamont (Taryn-Lee Hudson). Despite their onscreen romance, Don can’t stand Lina, whose comically terrible voice also puts her at odds with her studio, which is hoping to embrace the talkies. So the studio heads enlist an aspiring actress, Kathy Seldon (Bethany Dickson), to be her voiceover artist. And here’s another spanner in the works: Kathy and Don fall head over heels with each other, leaving behind one jealous and angry Lina.
The cast is great to watch, and there’s a lot of chemistry between them. The two female leads – Hudson and Dickson – stand out by singing beautifully and deliberately horrendously, respectively, while Steven van Wyk shines in his role as Don’s loyal yet overlooked best friend, Cosmo Brown. As a result of these very strong actors, however, Alexander’s performance as Don does come across as somewhat bland, though not to the point at which it affects the overall experience.
The set is kept simple for the production, a good call as it allows us to focus on the impressive costumes and choreography. This is most evident in the number ‘The Broadway Ballet’, in which almost the entire cast performs in a brightly coloured dance sequence. Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed’s songs are still catchy more than half a century after the fact, and they’re all wonderfully sung by the cast and well supported by the live orchestra.
But of course, the scene that everyone’s waiting for is the title song, performed at the end of the first act and reprised during the finale. We’re told that 12,000l of water is used in each performance, as the stage – and the audience members in the first four rows – gets drenched. It’s a sight to behold, and so much fun that it’s bound to unleash your inner five-year-old.
The show is the perfect way to de-stress after a long day, so get in there, kick back, sing along, and know that you’ll come out with that ‘glorious feelin’’, and ‘be happy again’.
GWEN PEW 