ROLL UP, ROLL UP…
What sharper summer time draw than “The Greatest Show On Earth” remembered inside one of many smallest theatres? Jonathan O”Boyle’s manufacturing has the beautiful little theatre decked out with bunting , retro posters and a circus-diner stall with sizzling canine; price attending to your seat early to see three of its performers swinging and twirling round on hoop and trapezes, costumed not in forbidding trendy Lycra however white tights and – even for males – sweetly absurd modest bloomers with blue ribbon.
This odd musical by Cy Coleman, Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble is as a lot about spectacle as story, which will be fairly irritating: the retro romance of the circus often tends to blot out the curiosity of Phineas T Barnum’s precise life in enterprise, philanthropy and fierce political battles in addition to showmanship. But then, he himself demurred at any “gilding” of seriousness saying “I am a showman by profession” and nothing extra.
But curiously, I like this small-scale manufacturing higher than any of the large theatrical extravaganzas : shut as much as all of them you turn out to be extra conscious of the dangers, enterprise in addition to bodily, and of the hardscrabble nature of 19c touring showmanship . Matt Rawle is a really partaking Barnum, all flop-haired enthusiasm for the noble artwork of humbug and hauling within the punters.
And, certainly, eliminating them when it is advisable: when the crowds in his large New York museum lingered too lengthy, going a number of occasions spherical to see the White Whale , Elephant and various freaks, he brilliantly ordered an indication on the exit saying TO THE EGRESS, appropriately assuming that thrill-seekers with out dictionary-learnin’ would count on some big eagle or ogress and go away. Thus demonstrating the nice fact that you need to use large phrases and panache to idiot folks into piutting your curiosity earlier than their very own. In reality, greater than as soon as I saved remembering the rise of Boris Johnson.
Barnum did much less hurt, although, and Rawle additionally has fairly sufficient appeal to persuade the dad and mom of the undersized Tom Thumb that making him a spectacle was displaying his abormality as “a gift from God”, and making you consider that his spouse Charity (Monique Young, sweetly grave) would stick with him even after his fascination with the dazzling operatic soprano Jenny Lind (Penny Ashmore , glamourously operatic and melodious). O’Boyle has discovered some grand circus performers and with Oti Mabuse as choreographer strikes an enormous solid joyfully round with extraordinary self-discipline within the small area, and a few standout moments with “One Brick at a time’ and the big Follow the Band; there’s a good coup-de-theatre when the curtain and costumes turn monochrome because “I humbugged myself into being respectable” in politics. Altogether, satisfying: you permit after solely two hours ten minutes with a spring in your step. What extra to ask on a summer time’s day? As traditional, the Watermill proves price any detour…
watermill.org.uk to eight September
