I will fully admit that I have never seen the 1953 film,
which starred Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed and
Frank Sinatra. I’ve also never read the 1951 book, by James Jones, on which the
film was based. To a degree I’m glad I’ve never seen the film or read the book
as I had no ideas on how the story should be told, or acted, and no
expectations for the show which could lead to disappointment. The show hasn’t
inspired me to read the book or, to a lesser degree, watch the film. Please
don’t assume that’s because I didn’t like the show though.
I’ll start by briefly talking about the sets. They were
brilliant. With lots of interesting details they almost a character in
themselves and you could easily spend the whole show just exploring the sets
with your eyes. The set changes were also exceptionally good being smooth and
without any noticeable hiccups. In fact I never really noticed them happening.
They just did. That’s a sign of a good backstage team. Although the sets
grabbed your attention they didn’t distract from the acting. They enhanced it.
The only issue I had with the set wasn’t really to do with the set at all, but
with the way the performers interacted with certain aspects of it. It was
during the first musical number sung by the men in the army barracks. With the
exceptions of shows such as Singing In the Rain and Top Hat, the dance is marginaly
secondary to the musical performances. With this first number in the barracks,
although I felt the singing was satisfactory, there was far to much emphasis on
the dancing. In fact there was so much dancing, at one point I was looking at
my watchnas it seemed to be going on for far too long. This is never a good
thing so early on in the show. Whats this got to do with the sets though?
During the number, movable parts of the set and props were used to ‘enhance’
the performance.
One thing I was looking forward to was seeing Darius
Campbell. He’s appearing in the role of Milt Warden, the role originated in the
film by Burt Lancaster. I vaguely remember his performances as a contestant on
the British talent shows Popstars and Pop Idol in 2001 and 2002 respectively.
He has appeared in the West End before in Chicago, Guys And Dolls as well as
Gone With The Wind. He also appeared as Escamillo in Brizet’s opera Carmen at
the O2 Arena in London in 2010 (at the age of just 29). I unfortunately didn’t
have the opportunity to see any of these performances so I was interested to
see what I thought of tis singing voice live. His performance was, for me, the
biggest surprise of the night. For some reason I went with the preconception
that I would be disappointed with him. It was however the best vocal
performance of the entire male cast. His acting wasn’t the best, but it was by
no means shockingly bad and negatively impact the entire show. That really
sounds bad. I should give him more credit. He’s a good actor and lovely to
watch. I found him engaging and, to an extent, believable. There were however
better actors than him.
The other performances were perfectly good, though I must
say nothing really outstanding. Believable? Well, almost. Captivating? Not
really. The phrase ‘good enough’ sprigs to mind. Other than Darius the only
other person to stand out to me was Ryan Sampson. He was the only other actor I
was interested to see. I knew him from his appearances in television on the
shows Plebs and Doctor Who. His live performance didn’t disappoint. He was a
bit of comic relief in a relatively serious show. This wasn’t a criticism, in
fact it was a really important thing as I felt it kept the audience engaged and
quite frankly awake. A friend of mine who went to see the show the show before
me didn’t like it at all. He tends to be a lot more critical than I, but I can
see why he felt the way he did. Quite frankly there are far better shows out
there to see for the money one pays for West End theatre. Not a bad show, but
certainly nothing memorable. Tickets and Info
