Hayes Theatre, Potts Point.

January 8 to January 11, 2020.

Director Shaun Rennie
Choreographer Cameron Mitchell
Musical Director Chris King

Love, love, loved this!

With just one day’s rehearsals, this was a knockout show. You hardly noticed those nifty little spiral bound A5 scripts. Many of the cast hardly looked at them at all – particularly star of the show Stefanie Caccamo as Irene. What a beautiful, sensitive, spot on performance as the feisty young Irishwoman who dares to dream.

I saw Irene when I was a girl and all the songs came back to me – ‘The World must be bigger than an Avenue’, ‘We’re getting away with it’, ‘I’m always Chasing Rainbows’. Wow! Music by Harry Tierney – I looked him up and must say I’m not really familiar with any of his other musicals. But Irene was and is a beauty! And, as director Shaun Rennie pointed out in his little introduction, it was the longest running Broadway musical of its time (1919). I did miss If Only He Knew that Julie Anthony sang so hauntingly in the original Oz version in 1974…

With the marvellous Nancye Hayes as Irene’s matter-of-fact mother and Mandy Bishop as a riotous Mrs Marshall, the cast shone. The girls from 9^th Avenue were fab – Ashleigh Rubenach and Ayesha Madon as Irene’s pals Jane and Helen and the boys worked beautifully as an ensemble: Rob Johnson, Connor Neylon and Axel Duffy. ‘The Great Lover Tango’ with Rob Mallett as the Stuffed Shirt Donald Marshall III was hilarious and I also loved that quirky little ‘The Riviera Rage’.

See this if you can!

Something very wrong with this production.

Went last night. Memorable because we were KICKED OUT of our seats in the Dress Circle at 7.27PM and forcibly relocated downstairs – consequently about 100 poor souls were LOCKED OUT from opening scene – AND they had the audacity to reassure us: You’ll only miss one song. But that’s another story, thank you to management of ICC and TEG Life Life Touring for ruining the evening…

But back to the show.

Something very wrong. Anthony Warlow was brilliant. A rich, warm, voice; a menacing presence; he seemed to channel Len Cariou. Mesmerising.

The other cast members? Well, they were all over the place. Variable. They seemed to be singing in their own little solo worlds not to each other. Weird. Toby (Jonathan Hickey) was notably good. And barber shop duets with Sweeney and Judge Turpin (Daniel Sumegi) were spot on. As Mrs Lovett, Gina Riley was too nice.

The set was odd. The orchestra took up half the stage. Why?

I have seen countless productions of ST and this set was one of the ugliness and most non-functional. Why the round dining room table? Is that the best they could do? In the final scene, there is the build-up to Sweeney returning. Will he burst out of the oven? Or from below? Or from above?

Nah. He’s just been crouching behind everyone. He hops up on the little steps, stands on the dining room and that’s it. Lame.

Biggest disappointment was the BARBER’S CHAIR . This is everything. It should be the focus of dire violence and vengeance and Sweeney’s dashed hopes and dreams but this barber’s chair is absolutely pathetic. Even amateur productions make excellent use of a trap door so that Sweeney slashes his victim’s throat, pulls the lever and – wham! – they’re gone.

This production had Sweeney slashing throats (with not nearly enough blood) with the victims remaining in the chair, then standing up and walking off stage. ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC. The worst, most anti-climatic interpretation I have ever seen.

Staging was messy. The chorus gathered around that stupid dining room table were hard to place. Were we in the street? Were we in Fogg’s lunatic asylum? Why were some of the women wearing JEANS?? And when Sweeney was writing to Judge Turpin why was one of the chorus sitting at the dining room table mimicking his writing??

Again, Anthony Warlow was brilliant but that’s about it. Strangely uncompelling and antiseptic with not nearly enough blood, gore, lust and passion.