50 Favourite Musicals: 43: FINGS AIN'T WOT THEY USED T'BE (1959) (Lionel Bart)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1959, Theatre Royal, Stratford East 

First seen by me: 2011, Union Theatre, London

Productions seen: two

Score: Lionel Bart
Book: Frank Norman

Plot:  1950s Soho; Fred runs a 'spieler' - a gambling bar/brothel - with his longtime girlfriend Lil, but their relatively peaceful life catering to brasses, pimps, bent coppers and ne'er-do-wells is threatened by the expansionist plans of a neighbouring thug Meatface...

Five memorable numbers: FINGS AIN'T WHAT THEY USED T'BE, WHERE DO LITTLE BIRDS GO?, THE CEILING'S COMING DAHN, POLKA DOTS, G'NIGHT DEARIE

Ex-con Frank Norman had originally sent his play to Joan Littlewood as a possible production for her Theatre Workshop company but Littlewood saw it's potential instead as a London musical and sent it to pop songwriter Lionel Bart - who had just written the lyrics for his first musical LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS - to see what he could come up with.  The musical took off like a rocket, straight from Stratford East into the West End where it ran for 886 performances and won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical.  Despite it's mundane - and now rather dated - storyline, Bart's music and vibrantly non-pc lyrics still burst off the stage with his unmistakable signature cocky cockney bravado.  After a muddled and clumsy Union Theatre production - nothing new there - there was a much better revival at Stratford East in 2014.  However which cast nowadays can compare to the sensational original cast recording. recorded live, which features Glynn Edwards, Miriam Karlin, Barbara Windsor, Toni Palmer, James Booth and Yootha Joyce?   That original production, by the way, was choreographed by Jean Newlove who was pregnant with her daughter, Kirsty MacColl...

Here is a trailer for the 2014 Stratford East revival, staged to celebrate Joan Littlewood's centenary..

TWANG!! at Union Theatre - when revivals go twong...

From the mid-1990s to the mid 2000s, The Bridewell Theatre just off Fleet Street developed quite a reputation under artistic director Carol Metcalfe for staging musicals that might not get a West End airing.  Using a smattering of well-trusted performers, the productions were a bit basic but it was a good way of seeing shows that otherwise might not be seen.

Since then, that mantle seems to have moved south of the river to, primarily, the Menier Chocolate Factory and, more recently, Southwark Playhouse.  The Union Theatre also stages little-seen musicals but their productions are so bargain-basement, they can be painful to sit through.  Step forward, Lionel Bart's TWANG!!

After the runaway success of OLIVER! in 1960, Lionel Bart's next two musicals were both English-based working-class subjects: BLITZ and MAGGIE MAY which both opened at the Adelphi Theatre in 1962 and 1964 respectively.  His East-End working class roots still appealed to his former FINGS AIN'T WOT THEY USED T'BE collaborator Joan Littlewood and she agreed not only to direct his next musical - a comedy based on the story of Robin Hood - but also to cast regulars from her Stratford East productions such as Howard Goornay, Bob Grant, James Booth and Barbara Windsor.

But Littlewood was soon disenchanted with Bart's TWANG!!; Bart's erratic progress on the show - he also co-wrote the book - was not helped by an increasing addiction to drugs and drink and soon they were at loggerheads, sparking arguments with other members of the creative team.  Meanwhile the cast struggled to breathe life into the characters that changed in daily rewrites, James Booth frustrated that his lead role of Robin Hood had little to do while Barbara Windsor's sexy lady-in-waiting Delphina soon over-shadowed Toni Eden's Maid Marian.

It went from bad to worse: Littlewood walked out on the show and was replaced by the American writer Burt Shevelove who co-directed with Bart.  The show struggled on to it's opening night just before Christmas 1965 to unsurprisingly bad reviews and it closed just over a month later, one of the more famous West End flops.

TWANG!! had a disastrous impact on Bart who had invested his own money into the show - a foolish action he repeated with the 1969 Broadway production of his musical LA STRADA and in 1972 Bart, the most famous British musicals composer of the 1960s, was made bankrupt.  By then he had sold the rights to all his shows, including OLIVER!

And so died TWANG!! apart from an original cast recording.  However in 2008, Bart's estate allowed Julian Woolford, the head of Musical Theatre at Guildford School of Acting, to totally rewrite the book and produce it again at Guildford with extra Bart songs shoe-horned into the score and this is what is presented at the Union Theatre.

I have to report that the curse of TWANG!! is still alive and well.  Woolford's book is a clanging meta-musical, snatches of famous musical numbers are belted out to get a knowing laugh from the peanut gallery but with each one my heart sunk.  It's like FORBIDDEN BROADWAY wedged under a Sherwood Forest bush.

Also - groaningly - there is a heavy gay sensibility going on... oh look Little John fancies Robin, oh look Will Scarlett marries Alan A-Dale.. but it's done with such a clanging "look-at-me, look-at-me - aren't I being Modern?" feel that it nearly turned me homophobic.

The show is directed by Bryan Hodgson and I suspect he sat in the rehearsals and run-throughs too busy laughing at the antics of his cast to actually see that there was more mugging going on than in 1970s New York and rein SOMETHING in.

The cast gallop over a truly ugly set by Justin Williams and Jonny Rust - yes it took two people to make something this fakakte - and as usual, the Union draws it's cast from the wealth of cruise ship entertainers, understudies and other play-as-cast performers that is their usual talent pool.  It was with a heavy heart that as usual at productions like these the audience of family and friends whooped and screamed like they were watching the second coming, or the first going.

I sometimes think I give the Union a bad rap but then I go to a production there and the heart sinks again.  What is annoying is that TWANG!! was no doubt seized upon to revive with the idea that it could all be reduced down to banal camp but where is the brave theatrical soul who will revive Bart's wartime BLITZ - albeit that is a huge undertaking - or his Liverpool docker's musical MAGGIE MAY - two shows, I hasten to add, that have stonking lead roles for women?  Not with this tide I fear.

CLOSER TO HEAVEN is still out of reach

Since it's unsuccessful first run in 2001 I have often wondered when the Pet Shop Boys musical CLOSER TO HEAVEN would get a revival.  Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe's electronic score finds room for both their signature dance beats and their introspective ballads and I've played the original cast recording regularly over the years.

Despite showcasing a magnificent star performance from Frances Barber as the drug-addled Eurotrash hostess Billie Trix, the original production foundered at the Arts Theatre after 5 months with most critics pointing the finger at Jonathan Harvey's paper-thin book which fundamentally damaged the show despite the goodwill that the score and cast generated.

But now - and I might have guessed this would be the case - the enterprising Union Theatre in Southwark have revived the show and the fact that it sold out in a few days shows that I wasn't the only one wanting to see it again.  I had hoped that Harvey's book would be re-hauled for this second twirl round the go-go pole.  Sadly that is not the case - and it looks even more threadbare on the unadorned Union stage.

I suspect that this is also down to the equally threadbare casting.  Like the Bridewell Theatre in the 1990s, it's great to have a theatre which regularly stages musicals that otherwise would not be revived but it must be said that the shows are cast with performers from the second or third rungs of performers.  A scan through the programme mostly reveal understudies, fringe and regional productions, cruise ship performers or first-job from Drama School.  Now I know everyone has to start somewhere... but not the lead surely?

CLOSER THAN HEAVEN follows two young characters whose lives intersect at a Soho gay club run by Vic, a hard-drinking, hard-snorting self-confessed "vampire" who lives at night.  Vic's daughter Shell from a short-lived straight relationship makes contact with him after many years and they struggle to establish a relationship.  At the same time, the effortlessly sexy - and Irish - Straight Dave arrives looking for work as a bartender although he soon establishes himself as the club's lead dancer.

Shell and Dave are attracted to each other and through her job as a PA to a gay record producer Bob Saunders, Dave is lined up to be the new member of his boy band Up & Coming.  Dave warily keeps the nasty Saunders at arm's length but finds himself attracted to the surly Mile End Lee, a young drug dealer who supplies Vic and his temperamental Eurotrash hostess Billie Trix in drugs.

Vic tries to clean up his life and club to impress Shell but when he discovers Mile End Lee delivering a large drugs package to Billie, he fires her and confiscates it.  Shell sees Dave and Lee getting physical in the club toilet and she dumps him.  Lee and Dave have a night together but Dave later dies from a ketamine overdose.  Dave becomes a pop star in his own right.

The End.

All the characters are expertly introduced during the opening number MY NIGHT but after the interval, Harvey's anorexic book starts coming apart at the seams.  Vic, Shell and Billie are neglected midway through the second act as the spotlight is switched to Straight Dave and Mile End Lee who promptly dies which leads to the big eleven o'clock teary ballad FOR ALL OF US, but it's efforts to get the tear ducts working fail because we are being asked to care for a secondary character who has had minimal effect on our sympathies up until then.

The show's climax - Dave's ascent to stardom - is unexplained and is obviously there to end the show with an uptempo number - but in this revival, the original last number, the excellent Barry White-sampled POSITIVE ROLE MODEL is ditched for VOCAL, a track from the last Pet Shop Boys album.

Director Gene David Kirk plods through the troublesome second act relying on the lights, music and his seven-strong ensemble to bump their crotches - no hiding when you are in the front row believe me - and grind their bums to hopefully distract from the paucity of content.  Said ensemble are excellent by the way but sadly Owen pointed out the similarity in Philip Joel's choreography to the famous, embarrassing flailing-about of Westlife's first appearance on Irish TV.  Once pointed out I couldn't get it out of my mind.

As in the original production some actors made the most of what they had to work with.  Although a bit shrill, I liked Amy Matthews' Shell as well as Craig Berry's blokey Vic while Ken Christiansen made the most of the viperous Bob Saunders.  Praise too for Ben Kavanagh as Flynn, Saunders' bitchy assistant.

The main problem was in the performances of Katie Meller as Billie Trix and Jared Thompson as Straight Dave.  As I said above, Frances Barber created a wonderful sacre monstre that covered up some of the dodgy, fag-haggy type lines Harvey gives her and sang her big solo FRIENDLY FIRE with a world-weary sadness that was really stopped the show.  Sadly Meller just doesn't have the wattage to deliver, her casting is a complete mystery other than I guess she's affordable.

Jared Thompson was even more problematic.  Paul Keating played Straight Dave at the Arts and was believable as the sexually-confused new kid on the go-go box while also being charismatic enough to make you believe in the other characters' interest in him but Thompson appears to not so much act as point his lantern jaw, floppy hair and erect nipples at people.  There was another more irritating problem - I had to laugh when he lisped through the line "Why does everyone think I'm gay".  Because they have ears?  What made me truly baffled though was in Thompson's duet with Connor Brabyn's Mile End Lee in the second act, Brabyn showed he had an excellent, strong singing voice - how on earth was he not cast as the lead?

So there we are, CLOSER TO HEAVEN has been revived and it is still has problems.  Not the first time a great score has been allied to a weak book but all the more frustrating when you can see it's obvious potential.  I am guessing we might not see another production anytime soon.

PSB have been very supportive of the show which is good of them and Neil Tennant was actually in the third row at our performance - I was quite sanguine about it, I only looked round a handful of times!  Oh for the chance to question him about what he really thinks of it.

I have been playing the original cast recording ever since seeing it and believe that this show could be successful if they dropped Jonathan Harvey's script which has all the depth of a Boyz magazine comic strip.

Three months after CLOSER TO HEAVEN closed, Boy George's TABOO opened a few minutes walk away from the Arts and ran for over a year.  Both dealt with gay club culture, had a bisexual leading character and of course both had scores by artists who had come to prominence in the 1980s.  In retrospect I think why TABOO survived was down to a sympathetic, inclusive outlook which CLOSER TO HEAVEN ultimately lacks.  You simply don't care for any of Harvey's characters no matter how good the songs they are singing.

Union Man...

Back in the 1990s and into the 2000s I used to frequent the Bridewell Theatre off Fleet Street.  It was a converted theatre space as it used to be a swimming pool and laundry yet!  To be honest no one ever went to the Bridewell to see great performances - I certainly saw some good ones but they were always a delightful surprise.  No, what one went to the Bridewell to see were productions of musicals that were too expensive and/or risky to ever appear in the West End.  The Bridewell closed to these productions in 2005.

I thought of the Bridewell last night on my way home from the Union Theatre as it seems to have taken it's place.  In almost as many weeks I have now seen two productions there and again both shows were ones that you would have to wait a long time to see in the West End.

 

The first show we saw there this year was the "Song By Song By Kander & Ebb" show THE WORLD GOES 'ROUND, the perfect show for a Sunday afternoon.

 

The show originated in 1991 when director Scott Ellis, choreographer Susan Stroman and librettist David Thompson (who would all later collaborate on the Kander & Ebb show STEEL PIER) put together the show to run off-Broadway where it won several awards but it never moved either to Broadway or London as by the next year the duo had their new show KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN staged.  The bizarre thing is that what we saw in 2014 was the 1991 show despite the fact they have since written STEEL PIER, THE VISIT, CURTAINS and THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS.  I think it would have been wiser to do a new show that could take in songs from these later productions.

 

So, once more into the CABARET and CHICAGO songbooks, dear friends, once more... The Union's set-up makes for a convoluted journey to your seat.  It is another 'reclaimed' space - once a paper warehouse - so after walking through it's narrow café (they call it a café, it's more like a passage with shelves on either side) you go into the bar at the back where you are given your numbered laminated tickets. They call numbers out in batches of ten so you can take your seats and give them back their laminated tickets!  I wonder - as I always do - why they can't just number their seats?  There was nearly a Queeny fight the afternoon we went to see the Kander & Ebb show over a disputed seat.  Oh and a handy tip... pee before you go otherwise you have to use the barnacled urinal.

 

 

But despite that Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the show?  Hey what's not to love?  They are lovely songs and they were sung by a good cast - Susan Fay, Simon Green, Gareth Snook, Lisa Stokke and Emma Francis.  There was also a supporting company of five dancers (aka possible understudies) who clumped around the concrete floor charmingly.  The leads all had their moments to shine and were clapped enthusiastically by us, the small but happy audience.

 

Kirk Jameson directed and designed the show (it couldn't have taken long as it was only 5 chairs and some mirrors) and Sam Spencer Lane was responsible for the moves.  Enjoyable but it wasn't a patch on HOW LUCKY CAN YOU GET! which was a Kander & Ebb compilation which played at the Donmar (before it became "The Donmar") in 1988 with the astonishing cast of Diane Langton, Josephine Blake, Angela Richards and the late Martin Smith.  The set list was roughly the same but damn it was one to remember.

 

 

Which brings me to the problem I have with most shows these days, where are the real musical comedy performers who can elevate a show from adequate to memorable?  Most shows these days usually feel like you are watching an understudy call - and yes, I'm talking West End too.

 

Show after show seems to be cast from an endless pool of tour choruses, understudies and cruise ship dancers.  Not a bad thing if these can then be built on but the level stays the same - acres of anonymous performers who can smile and nod but who are incapable of throwing shade on a characterisation.  So, on to FINIAN'S RAINBOW...

 

 

All though it's a well-known name I suspect that's due to the lame film version, it's certainly not down to production history, the Union Theatre's production is it's first in London since 1947 - and that one only lasted 22 performances!!

 

The original book has been rewritten by Charlotte Moore who is the artistic director of the USA's Irish Repertory Theatre who revived it ten years ago.  The whimsy-fuelled story centred on Finian, an Irish immigrant, and his daughter Sharon arriving in the imagined state of Missitucky - although a major part of the plot is about living near Kentucky's Fort Knox.  Finian wants to bury a crock of gold near Fort Knox so it will grow (I know, I know) but is unaware that Og, the leprechaun he stole it from, is on his trail.  Sharon falls in love with a local lad but the community is being threatened by a racist senator who wants to buy up their land.

 

 

Plenty there to rewrite I agree but what is the actual reason?  Because Sharon makes a wish that the senator would understand what it's like to be hated while accidently holding the magic crock which grants wishes and the Senator turns black.  The original - and well-meaning - book-writers meant for this to show the Senator exactly what it's like to be poor and black - but no, it is now taken to mean that to be black is to be 'wrong'. 

 

So political correctness decrees the character now disappears only to turn up as a poor white man!  So no, don't rewrite the Leprechaun character, don't rewrite the idea that burying gold will make it grow out of the ground - don't even rewrite the profoundly irritating character of the ingénue who can't speak but dances her answers!

 

 

So as has happened so often before, we have an under-par book supporting a delightful score.  In an odd turn of events, the three break-out numbers from the score - "How Are Things In Glocca Morra?", "Look To The Rainbow", "Old Devil Moon" - follow one another at the start of the show and are of such a high quality that it's hard for the score to keep up that standard but it constantly surprises and enchants.  It's no wonder that Sondheim is a fan of E.Y. 'Yip' Harburg, his lyrics are always on the money and genuinely inspired - the second act opener "When The Idle Poor Become The Idle Rich" is great fun.

 

There are nice performances from James Horne as 'Finian', Christina Bennington as 'Sharon', Raymond Walsh as 'Og' and Joseph Peters as 'Woody' but the playing area is too cramped to fully contain the cast of 23 so it gives an uneven feeling when they all cram in together and start bellowing at the three rows of humble punters.  Believe me, there is nowhere to hide - apropos my earlier point, although the chorus all gave energetic and 'up' performances there wasn't much variation to their playing and in such a confined space their "teeth, tits and tonsils" approach was quite claustrophobic.

 

 

I guess if it's the fault of director Phil Willmott it's because he's such a fan of the show. So, despite all my ruminations, the bottom line is you are not going to see FINIAN'S RAINBOW on any West End stage anytime soon and for the score alone - and the named performers above - I suggest you get along to the Union Theatre where it is playing until 15th March.

 

I guess - to paraphrase Og's second act number - when I'm not near the show I love, I love the show I'm near.

When I heard that the Union Theatre were reviving Lionel Bart's "play with music" FINGS AIN'T WOT THEY USED T'BE I was cockahoop. I have been a fan of the original cast recording - recorded live - for some time but suspected that the show would not be revived as the lyrics certainly betray a certain dated quality. But I should have guessed that the Union, the home of the unlikely revival, would come through. Yes the show has dated in parts - and the production has a few distinct problem areas - but it won me round in the end. It certainly made me imagine how dynamic the original production would have been.

In 1959 Frank Norman submitted his first play to Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at Stratford East. It's story of Soho heavies and prostitutes - drawn from a milieu that ex-con Norman knew all too well - was too bald for Littlewood and she hit on the inspired idea of suggesting they show the script to Lionel Bart, a successful pop song writer who had recently written the lyrics for his first musical LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS to turn it into a play with music. The result was a huge success and the show transferred to the Garrick where it ran for 886 performances and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.

The original cast - captured 'live' on the album - was one you would now kill to see: Glynn Edwards as Fred Cochran, the crook who owns a gambling club/brothel, Mariam Karlin as Lily, his long-suffering girlfriend who runs his decrepit knocking shop, James Booth as Tosher, Fred's second-in-command who pimps his two brasses Rosey and Betty, played by Barbara Windsor and Toni Palmer, Wallis Eaton as the camp interior decorator Horace, Tom Chatto as the bent local Police Inspector and, among the supporting cast, a young Yootha Joyce.
Phil Willmott's dimly-lit production did itself no favours by starting off with the cast bellowing out the numbers at the top of the volume which was ridiculous in such a confined space - I have rarely heard such an overbearingly loud noise - even the most experienced of them, Neil McCaul as Fred, barked out his lines and songs like he was on the Palladium stage.

People.... read, your, space.

The entrances and exits were at times a bit haphazard and the whole thing seemed to need a firmer hand controlling it as it's quite a large cast of characters and at times it was hard to get an idea of who one was supposed to be concentrating on.

Also I want to single out Richard Foster-King who played Horace, the camp interior designer. I have never seen such an over-emphasised, ugly, performance. His horribly over-the-top delivery totally ruined Bart's charming "Contempery" - imagine if you will the bastard offspring of Larry Grayson, Julian Glover and Frances de la Tour. Only camper. His screaming and lisping made me seriously consider leaving at the interval.That's him at the back of the picture being strangled by McCaul. If only... But despite this hideous performance and over-pitched delivery, slowly the show began to settle down and I found myself enjoying the show as much as I had hoped to.

Hannah-Jane Fox who it appears is a West End leading lady thanks to four years in WE WILL ROCK YOU played Lil with a gentle restraint - but all it took was a short reprise of "The Ceiling's Comin' Dahn" by Ruth Alfie Adams' weary-but-rough tart to show how great she would have been in the role. I did however like her performance of "Where Do Little Birds Go?" that stopped the show for Barbara Windsor.
The show was stolen by the partnership of Hadrian Delacey's crooked Inspector Collins and Suzie Chard's dizzyingly voluptuous tart Barbara - imagine a talented Jodie Prenger. Their tough-but-tender relationship was fully believable and they performed "Cop A Bit o'Pride" with a real élan.

I also liked Ian Rixon as Fred's 'gopher' Billy who nabbed all the funny lines going and Jo Parsons also made an impression as Tosher, a young cocky wide-boy quietly nursing his ambition for all that Fred has. The trouble with Norman's script is that the characters all have a moment to step up but the storylines are all left hanging as he cuts to a quick denouement to wrap up the Fred/Lily story - a storyline that seemed to be a cockney reflection of GUYS AND DOLLS' Nathan and Miss Adelaide.

A special mention must go to Nick Winston's choreography which makes the most of the wide but shallow stage although it was only a matter of time during Suzie Chard's raucous number "Big Time" that one of the jitterbugging couples would send one of the front row pub tables go a-clattering!

So despite the quibbles - and shiteous performance by Foster-King - I am glad I finally got a chance to see this show with it's delightful score and see a few performers that I will keep an eye open for in the future. It certainly helps to put Bart in perspective - it's frustrating that OLIVER! seems to be the only one of his shows that get's revived.

Maybe the Union Theatre would like to have a go at his Liverpool musical MAGGIE MAY which starred first Rachel Roberts then Georgia Brown during it's run at the Adelphi in 1964.

What's the best way to spend the hottest day of the year Constant Reader? How's about sitting in a 40-seat theatre under a railway arch in Southwark? It works for me - especially if I am seeing one of my favorite Sondheim musicals.But is ASSASSINS a musical? Not in the usual sense of the word. There are not many musicals where one of the leading characters will have two intensely powerful monologues with no solo number to 'cap' them but then the world of ASSASSINS is unpredictable, just as it should be.

Unsurprisingly the show has never found the acclaim it deserves on the Great White Way, no doubt in part to the unflinching light it shines at that most absurd of concepts The American Dream. If allegedly anyone can find fame as the President then surely it follows that anyone can find fame as the President's killer. It's not unusual to say that a Sondheim score haunts you but what I love about ASSASSINS is that John Weidman's morally-questioning book is as powerful and a true equal to the music. Although not without it's flaws one thing this production pointed out strongly is the role of the Balladeer, here played pointedly by Nolan Frederick. As the audience's unofficial guide he is the one who frames the musical numbers of the show's 'historical' assassins - John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz and Giuseppe Zangara while the 'modern' failed assassins - Sam Byck, Lynette Fromme, Sara Jane Moore and John Hinckley are mostly given scenes by themselves.Towards the end though as the Assassins and the Balladeer argue during the song ANOTHER NATIONAL ANTHEM, the Assassins force the Balladeer from the stage and by doing so remove the show's moral compass... which leads into the wonderfully-written scene where the Assassins seduce and convince the suicidal Lee Harvey Oswald to the course of action that does indeed unify them finally as a group of people to be taken seriously and not just disparate, sad, random acts. Personally I like to believe that's what really happened in the Texas School book depository!

This also echoes the actions of the fairy-tale characters in Sondheim's previous show INTO THE WOODS who sacrifice the onstage narrator to the avenging widow of The Giant because they don't like his superior tone.As I said the weather on the day we went was sweltering and the confusing and cramped front-of-house area at the Union - seemingly the alleyway between two buildings - didn't bode well for having to spend the next 110 minutes cooped up inside a small auditorium. Thankfully when once inside the space was deliciously air-conditioned although we did have to sit in the cinema-style seats which wobbled alarmingly on a podium - especially when the not-onstage cast sat on the back of it.

As I said the production was not without it's flaws. The scene changes were frustratingly slow for a show that is supposed to keep hitting you with scenes and songs which stalled the momentum of the scene that had gone before and the choreography for THE BALLAD OF CZOLGOSZ - one of my favourite numbers - seemed needlessly tricksy and prop-heavy - especially as the stage directions are in the song - you just need a line of people queuing up to shake hands with President McKinley! Although I am all for atmosphere, the loud blasts of dry ice from behind us were annoyingly diverting and dissipated above our heads before reaching the stage anyway. There were also one or two dodgy voices in the ensemble although I really liked the idea of having them as presidential bodyguards and I thought their singing of Sondheim's added song SOMETHING JUST BROKE - in which we hear reactions to the killings from ordinary people down the ages - was particularly fine.

Despite all these I have to say this is one of the most enjoyable small-scale Sondheims I have seen. Michael Strassen's production is gloriously unrelenting and he has elicited fine performances from some key members of his cast. Glyn Kerslake and John Barr are two actors who I know more for their concert or cd appearances than for any stage work but here they both gave eye-catching performances as the vain, charismatic Booth and the clearly insane Guiteau, Barr making the most of THE BALLAD OF GUITEAU in which Sondheim used the actual poem that Guiteau recited on the gallows, as he cakewalked and cavorted nearer and nearer to the rope even with his legs tied together.

Adam Jarrell was an impassioned and sympathetic Leon Czolgosz especially in his scene with the brusque but well-meaning Emma Goldman (Lisa Stokke) and Nolan Frederick was fine as The Balladeer.Just out of interest, I wonder how anarchist Emma Goldman feels in the afterlife about featuring in two Broadway musicals - this and RAGTIME? I'm sure it makes up for the fact she was deported from America in 1917 eh?Leigh McDonald was hugely enjoyable as Sara Jane Moore, the hapless assassin who brings her dog and small son to where she is going to assassinate Gerald Ford. McDonald played her with an attractive zaniness and a genuine sense of desperation.

However the most out-there performance was Nick Holder as the paranoid Samuel Byck who in his two long and engrossing monologues took us deep into the heart of the Assassins' psyche - the irrational sense of grievance, the anger at failed dreams, the realisation that nothing changes whoever is in power. Holder was frightening, hilarious, grotesque and tragic within seconds of each other.What I loved so much about this production is that unlike the recent trend of small-scale shows this one had musicians - yes, SIX real musicians - who got on with playing the score leaving the actors free to get on with their job.

This remarkable work which showcases one of Sondheim's most gloriously theatrical scores will continue to linger long in the mind and will always intrigue me to revisit it's dark carnival of killers.