Before it even starts this production of the GO BETWEEN is a significant moment, it’s the rare arrival of a new musical in the West End. Its chances of survival are considerably boosted by the involvement of producer, Bill Kenwright who we probably have to thank for the casting of musical theatre mega-star Michael Crawford (The original Phantom)Crawford plays an old man in an attic reminiscing about an incident from his childhood when he was welcomed into an aristocratic Edwardian family but then exploited by the daughter of the house and her illicit, lower class lover, to pass secret messages between the two of them.
As he remembers the past appears around him and we watch as the memories come to shifting, shimmering life amidst the dreamscape of a dilapidated country house (design by Michael Pavelka).
It’s staged by veteran director, Roger Haines, employing abstract staging techniques fashionable in the 1980s with the back-lit cast waving chairs around to suggest shifts in time, producing simple props to suggest location and moving like a Greek chorus to emphasise pivotal moments. Effective... and cheap! An important consideration with such a risky financial venture and with Mr Crawford’s salary to pay!
Every expense is spared in the instrumentation too, the whole thing is accompanied by a single grand piano stage right. In fact, aside from the clever casting and opulence of the white costumes and bits of scenery the show doesn’t seem to have changed much since a workshop I saw of it three years ago. I was hoping the writers Richard Taylor and David Wood might have realised how soporific a tuneless score, virtually always at the same tempo, is. The audience around me were drifting into their own dreams all around me in the hot and airless auditorium; the row in front of me didn’t return after the interval.
There isn’t a memorable melody in the entire evening, purposely so, like a dream, the score bubbles away in snatches of music like Sondheim recitative.
I'm going to be frank; I was very, very bored. Haines’ determination to keep everything at a glacial pace sapped all the passion, sexuality and fun from this story about a boy morphing into manhood as he’s party to the lies and betrayals of the adult world.
Crawford is mesmerising with his effortless, light, floating vocals. The two boys I saw playing the leads, our hero and his school friend, William Thompson and Samuel Menhinick, gave faultless performances of great subtlety, the often shirtless Stuart Todd is suitably hunky as the bit of rough. Gemma Sutton is more petulant than passionate as his secret love, the wayward daughter, but perhaps that's apt for such a spoilt and unworldly creature.
I particularly enjoyed Stephen Carlile as the cuckolded fiancé, made creepy in a child's eyes by his facial disfigurement, Julian Forsyth as a father too preoccupied with meteorology to notice the family crisis brewing under his very nose and the always brilliant Issy Van Randwyck as a terrifying matriarch who, she also shows us, has fears and insecurities of her own.
In fact there's plenty to admire. It could be that the introduction of a few more instruments might have souped things up.
As it stands, I'd catch it quickly, if you're interested. It's too subtle, too sophisticated, too low key and lacking in a wow factor to last in the competitive West End.
Many people have attempted to base a musical on the life of Marilyn Monroe, there's even been a TV show, SMASH, chronicling the trials, tribulations and triumphs of a fictional production. The songs from the programme are great and it's rumoured that we'll get a Broadway version soon.