Canines own the stage in the venue’s new musical version of 101 Dalmatians, in which all the best efforts of Scotland Yard can’t compete with the “world-wide-woof” when it comes to tracing stolen puppies.Īdapted by Zinnie Harris, with book by Johnny McKnight and music and lyrics by Douglas Hodge, the musical lifts Dodie Smith’s 1956 story into the modern day. More skiffle over at the Open Air Theatre, where things have gone to the dogs.
Kate Fleetwood as Cruella de Vil in ‘101 Dalmatians’ © Mark Senior 101 Dalmatians Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park, London It’s not a staging that brings deep new insights to a musical it is simply an irrepressible and irresistible show. He’s matched by Carly Anderson as Polly, who finds a yearning depth beneath her tough exterior in “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “But Not for Me”.Īround them we have more caricatures than characters, but the ensemble play them with good-humoured wit, particularly Tom Edden as imperious impresario Zangler and Merryl Ansah as Bobby’s irate fiancée. He’s gawkily funny, sweetly over-eager and a terrific, feather-light, spring-heeled dancer. I have always taken risks’Īt the heart of it all is Stemp’s dizzying turn as Child, to whom he brings an aptly childlike enthusiasm for life. A sense of mischief and invention powers Stroman’s direction and choreography: “I Got Rhythm”, the most irresistible of its many beloved songs, goes off like a firecracker, with the locals forming an impromptu skiffle band, playing spades and watering cans and tap-dancing on gold-panning plates.ĪLSO READ Novelist Leïla Slimani: ‘I’m not a careful person. This is a show set during the Great Depression, and its celebration of the transformative energy of live theatre is uplifting and particularly poignant post-lockdown. Needless to say, this scheme runs into a little turbulence.īut underneath all the frivolity there is a more serious point. He’s barely there five minutes before he’s got drunk, fallen in love (with tough cookie postal worker Polly) and come up with a plan: he will impersonate leading impresario Bela Zangler, invite Zangler’s dancing girls over, put on a show and save the theatre. Would-be dancer Bobby Child, who works for a New York bank, is sent to foreclose on a former theatre in sleepy Deadrock, Nevada (population 37) - an abandoned mining town where even the tumbleweed rolls on through.
Drawn together by Ken Ludwig and Mike Ockrent in 1992, from the Gershwins’ earlier show Girl Crazy, it can scarcely be commended for the depth of its storyline.
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