THE WORLD GOES ‘ROUND

There’s always an excitement about seeing a musical theatre student workshop - you never know who may turn out to be the stars of tomorrow. This was the case with the Kander and Ebb compilation musical The World Goes ‘Round, a perfect vehicle to showcase the singing, dancing and acting skills of a refreshing group of new faces.

The original 1991 Off-Broadway production had a cast of five. This one had 23.

In coming up with an idea of how to use them all, director Cienda McNamara, chose to set it around a ‘dance marathon.’ The concept worked well for the big ensemble numbers with “Yes”, “All That Jazz” and “Money, Money”, generating excitement, but pulled-focus in some of the more introspective numbers like, “Mr Cellophane”.

Luke Hodgson mined “Sara Lee” for maximum laughs, and dueted with Jason Bentley for a tender “I Don’t Remember You”/’Sometimes a Day Goes By” medley. Stephanie Dean nicely captured the bitter-sweet feelings of lost love in “My Colouring Book”, while Vanessa Krummenacher was achingly beautiful on “A Quiet Thing”, one of the best ballads in the Kander and Ebb canon.

The choral work of the whole company was outstanding with the finale six-part-harmony version of “Cabaret” a delight.

Luke Volker on grand piano was brilliant, never playing a wrong note all night, and the encore of “New York, New York” in multiple languages was an obvious audience-pleaser.

It was a good show and the cast all deserved the big round of applause they got at the end.

Peter Pinne

Photographer: Anthony Ma.