Singin’ In The Rain

Phantom has a crashing chandelier, Miss Saigon has a helicopter, and Singin’ in the Rain has, well, rain - buckets of it. When the orchestra strikes up that well-known classic riff and Don Lockwood starts humming “dum, de, dum, dum” a frisson of excitement tingles the audience and we’re in musical comedy heaven. The classic scene where the character splashes through the pouring rain closes the first act on a high. It’s one of the show’s three highlights, the other being the “Gotta Dance” sequence in the second act and the finale with the entire company on stage twirling silver umbrellas with coloured linings all singing and dancing in the rain.

Movie musicals are notoriously hard to successfully adapt to the stage (only Disney seems to get it right), and Singin’ in the Rain is not one of them but, it’s better than most. This production, which originated at the UK’s Chichester Festival Theatre and played the West End, wears its heart on its sleeve and there are some ingratiating performances by the principals.

Rohan Brown (alternating the role with Grant Almirall) as Don Lockwood nicely captured the character’s vanity and élan, moved gracefully in “You Were Meant For Me” and tap danced like a champion throughout. As did Gretel Scarlett, who more than held her own in the dancing department, managed sweetness without being saccharine, and sang well. Jack Chambers had Cosmo’s pratfalls down pat, mastered the mugging and double-takes, and was a tap-dancing whizz. If he missed anything it was a genuine vaudeville feel for the material, although “Fit as a Fiddle” worked remarkable well.

In a show whose main conceit is “sound”, the sound was surprisingly muddy with punch-lines continually lost. Erika Heynatz’s Lina Lamont suffered the most, particularly her solo “What’s Wrong with Me? which should have stopped the show and didn’t.

A trio of “old pros”, Robyn Arthur, Mike Bishop, and Rodney Dobson, made a banquet of the cameo parts, bringing life to the familiar lines.

Simon Higlett’s all grey set has to be the dullest we’ve seen in a big musical lately, except perhaps for Little Shop of Horrors earlier in the year, but his costumes thankfully were a blaze of colour. Andrew Wright’s choreography mirrored the movie routines with the “Gotta Dance” sequence a standout. The B&W film sequences were well done, provided many laughs, and added enormously to the fun of Jonathan Church’s production.

But it was the rain that was the star. It was magical and almost made me believe we were seeing something more than a standard UK touring production.

Peter Pinne  

Photographer: Darren Thomas