Hayes Theatre, November 27
5.5/10
This is where the name for the hotels came from. All 1100 of them. Inspired by the 1942 movie starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, which was blessed with the music of Irving Berlin, the hotel chain arrived 10 years later. Six more decades would pass before the film, primarily remembered for containing probably the biggest hit record of all time, White Christmas, spawned this stage musical.
The film, already frothy, was milked, pasteurised, homogenised, condensed, skimmed and made so light that both the characters and the narrative are furiously trying to disappear entirely. Writing it was reportedly a rush job, and, if that’s true, it shows. The story is so poorly crafted that two of the characters we think we’re going to be following, the cocky Ted (Jacob Steen) and the foot-loose Lila (Emma Feliciano) suddenly disappear for half the show, leaving you with a fresh plot centred on the rather wet Jim (Nigel Huckle), a performer turned wannabe farmer.
But, praise be, we have Berlin’s songs.
Beyond White Christmas, the film bequeathed the world Be Careful, It’s My Heart, which was its intended hit, and some rather more forgettable ones. It seems the creators, however, Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge, had the run of the Berlin catalogue, so the musical’s score is immeasurably fattened up by the likes of Steppin’ Out with My Baby, Blue Skies, Heat Wave (apposite on this night) and Cheek to Cheek. Precious few modern musicals can boast such a roster of timeless songs.
First-time director Sally Dashwood has certainly assembled a cast which does justice to these songs, including Huckle, Steen, Feliciano, Paige Fallu, Matt Hourigan and Niky Markovic, and the dancing (with choreography by Veronica Beattie George) also has its moments, notably from Steen and Feliciano. But saving the characters from our indifference is not just beyond Dashwood and her performers, I dare say it would be beyond the best in the world. The exception is Mary McCorry who genuinely sparkles as Linda Mason, the second woman in the story who must choose between Jim and Ted, and the one character with a semblance of three-dimensionality.
Brendan de la Hay’s costumes include a standout moment when the men wear Magritte-like cloud-patterned suits for Cheek to Cheek (“I’m in Heaven”), although the on-stage band is less assured. Abi McCunn has generally done a shrewd job of shrinking the original orchestrations down to just a quintet, led by herself and Dylan Pollard, but the music is blighted by some flat notes from the horns and by several rhythms sounding wooden rather than lithe.
Nonetheless, it’s nearly (a non-white) Christmas, and fans of Irving Berlin may be happy to turn a blind eye to the narrative inadequacies, and, if the band can be polished up to the standard of the singing and Veronique Bennett’s lighting, wallow happily in some of the finest songs ever crafted.
Until December 22.