Review: HIGH SOCIETY, Barbican Theatre

Latest in the line of blockbuster Cole Porter musicals dominating the Barbican’s summer programming is High Society, following in the footsteps of Anything Goes and Kiss Me, Kate. Like its predecessors, High Society is, to a certain extent, an excuse for a series of absurd situations contrived to fit in as many Cole Porter songs as possible.

This musical, which premiered on Broadway in 1998, has a storied production history – the basic plot began life as the Philip Barry play The Philadelphia Story, which then came to the screen as a screwball comedy starring Katharine Hepburn, and then a musical film entitled High Society. It seems fitting, then, that the score has a more eclectic feel than other Porter stage adaptations.

Alongside classics such ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’ and ‘Well, Did You Evah?’ – pleasingly, this production reverses the 1998 version’s strange decision to make the memorable Bing Crosby/Frank Sinatra duet from the film into an ensemble number – are little-known numbers unearthed from Porter’s back catalogue. Any amateur musical theatre historian will be pleased to discover ‘Let’s Misbehave’, the raunchier, scrapped precursor to ‘Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love’.

Book writer Arthur Kopit – who died in 2021, and whose last Broadway credit was High Society – has a lot to work with from the source material. In a typical Hays Code-era ‘divorce plot’, listless Rhode Island socialite Tracy Lord (Helen George) finds herself in a love triangle between her ex-husband Dexter (Julian Ovenden) and Mike (Freddie Fox), a reporter covering Tracy’s impulsive wedding to her family’s painfully dull accountant (a perfect fish-out-of-water turn from David Seadon-Young).

There is potential here for something that goes beyond the initial farce, and probes a woman’s journey to vulnerability in the face of a second chance at love, while languishing in the playful eroticism of the love triangle, and lightly critiquing the obscene wealth Tracy comes from. Kopit’s book is sharply witty, in a way that contrasts nicely with the heightened emotion of some of the ballads, if it sometimes struggles with pacing, panicking at all the loose ends it has to wrap up in the second act.

In an attempt to conjure up the escapist glitz one expects of Cole Porter, though, this production has gilded the lily a little too much. Tom Rogers’ set is good at balancing squeaky clean New England pastels with something a little more opulent, but some of the set pieces – including a swimming pool and several garden follies – threaten to overwhelm the more subtle moments in the story. Rachel Kavanaugh’s directorial choices feel hedged in by the gaudy aesthetics, as though the production doesn’t trust the strength of the script to stand on its own.

Helen George’s performance as Tracy, meanwhile, seems to treat the character as a vessel for the plot rather than an enacter of it, and lacks some of the self-awareness of her own superficiality seen in the film versions of Tracy (played by Hepburn, and then by Grace Kelly in the musical film). When Mike describes her as “someone way more interesting” than her fellow dinner party guests, it’s difficult to believe him.

This is redeemed, however, by a strong supporting cast. Ovenden’s Dexter is playful and soulful, and solo numbers including the excellent ‘Just One Of Those Things’ strike the right balance of charm and yearning. Barbican musical regulars Felicity Kendal and Nigel Lindsay have some solid one-liners as Tracy’s hapless mother and deluded Uncle Willie, and the ensemble provide suitably debauched background for the show’s pivotal scene, a champagne-fuelled all-night party.

Don’t expect too much in this version of the story when you scratch the surface of the deckchairs and the transatlantic accents. But it’s an enjoyable watch nonetheless, and a worthy addition to the dependably crowdpleasing Barbican Cole Porter canon.

High Society plays at the Barbican Theatre until 11 July

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