A Chorus Line

Is this the most difficult musical for an amateur company to get right? After all, it’s about ruthless show biz professionalism. A stage full of tough New York dancer/singers battle to be selected for a top-notch Broadway chorus line: from the short-listed 17 only eight will be selected. There’s no hiding place for under-strength performers — the great songs, the demanding routines, the burning monologues will definitely find you out. All power, then, to the Gosford Musical Society here under the direction of Chris King and with smartly adapted choreography by Lauren Miller. They make as good a fist of the mighty show as a local community group could be expected to do.

For starters, the Laycock Street Theatre stage is nicely wide and bare, with the required moveable full-length mirrors, a couple of ladders and not much more. The costumes (Doreen Cox) are perfect, the lighting (Damian Rice) and sound design (Dean Harrington and Danny Hankinson) to a very high order. The 17-strong band under MD Chris Hochkins clearly relishes the exciting orchestrations and dazzling score.

And the cast get heroically close to matching the show’s demands. Okay, they’re not ready for a national tour; but these guys are fine, deeply committed and acting up a storm. Though the dancing is not nearly as complex, the confrontation between Cassie (Felicity Calwell), the unfulfilled lead dancer, and Zach (Shane Caufield), the conflicted director, is more convincing and moving than in any of the several versions I have seen.

Also notable are Toni Williams who delivers ‘Nothing’ and the great ‘What I Did For Love’, Wendy Horan as the ditzy dancer who ‘really couldn’t sing’, and Katie Pascoe proudly parading her off-the-shelf ‘tits and ass’. Sheila Bryant and Amanda Woodbine consistently demand our attention; John Collin’s gay confessional monologue is a highlight.

Though the full company’s concluding version of ‘One’ — in Doreen Cox’s magnificent golden, top-hatted outfits — is not quite the mechanical, characterless construct into which the varied chorus members have merged, nevertheless this is a powerful production of a difficult and demanding masterwork.

Frank Hatherley 

Photographer: Jennifer Holland.