PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Bristol Hippodrome (Tue 22 Nov-Sat 3 Dec)

THEATRE They really don’t write musicals like ‘South Pacific’ any more. And more’s the pity. Because, frankly, self-important sub-operatic epics like ‘Les Miserables’, the pseudo-clever dickery of Andrew Lloyd Webber and – gawd help us – those crappy money-spinning ‘jukebox’ shows like ‘We Will Rock You’ haven’t got a patch on a good old-fashioned Rodgers & Hammerstein job. Especially not when said R&H job’s given the full-on Broadway treatment, as it is here in a Tony Award-scooping production originally emanating from Manhattan’s Lincoln Center Theater.

Set during World War Two, ‘South Pacific’ hinges on the relationship between an Arkansas-hailing nurse, Nellie Forbush, and an émigré French planter, Emile De Becque, and incorporates a full quota of sub-plots involving sex-starved sailors, opportunistic entrepreneurs, the mysterious island of Bali H’ai, a dangerous mission behind enemy lines and our old chum, the show-within-a-show.

Cue a whole slew of catchy R&H numbers (the Morecambe-and-Wise-immortalised ‘There Is Nothin’ Like A Dame’, ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair’, erm, ‘Happy Talk’ et al), some de rigueur moments of high sentiment, a surreal interlude or two – and, perhaps more surprisingly, some fairly hefty Deep South-baiting points about prejudice. Indeed, doomed pilot Jo Cable’s ‘You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught’ must be the only song in a musical to take a neo-Marxist line on the cultural reproduction of racist attitudes – outside the works of Brecht anyhow.

True, getting all this in means pushing the running time up to a Shakespearean three hours, and while that doesn’t necessarily fly by, it doesn’t drag either. That’s partly due to some alarming mood swings from pathos to comedy and back again, but is mainly thanks to a stronger-than-most ensemble and some spiky individual performances – most notably from Loretta Ables Sayre as Bloody Mary and Alex Ferns as a Popeye-esque Luther Billis. Samantha Womack (yep, her off of ‘Eastenders’) traces Nellie’s trickily fluctuating emotional states and is best when sassing her up with a touch of the Monroes, while Jason Howard gives good enigmatic Frenchman as Emile, turning his heartstring-tugging ‘This Nearly Was Mine’ into something of a showstopper.

Sure, this is unashamedly retro fare, but with the backing of an on-the-money orchestra and the injection of some vaudeville-style bawdy, it’s as good an account of a trad slice of proper-job musical theatre as you’re likely to see this side of 1950s Broadway. (Tom Phillips)

Copyright Tom Phillips 2011