BWW Reviews: BURLESQUE, Jermyn Street Theatre, Nov 16 2011

Double act Johnny (Jon-Paul Hevey) and Rags (Chris Holland) are knocking 'em dead in the Palace Theatre's burlesque revue - but, it's the early Fifties in the USA and old school proprietor Freddie Le Roy (Linal Haft) and sidekick Lula (Buster Skeggs) know that the writing is on the wall for his sleazy fleapit.

So do his long-suffering strippers: Honey (Alicia Davies) who's sweet on Johnny; Amy (Victoria Serra) who's sweet on Freddie - well, Freddie's money; and Georgia (Sinead Mathias) who's sweet on her baby at home, to the displeasure of on-off boyfriend Saul (Jeremiah Harris-Ward).

Some stock characters there from the backstage musical genre, but they are soon being pulled and pushed by geopolitical tides that first wash up on the Palace doorstep in the form of an FBI man (Bill Henry) then wash over all the characters' lives as Johnny is called to testify before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in order to betray his dead father and name secret communists. It is the impact of this relatively unknown period of American history, with its blacklisting forcing heart-rending choices on happy-go-lucky entertainers, that lifts Burlesque into a substantial work with much to say about fear and fraternity.

On opening night, the performances were somewhat uneven, with the world-weary wisecracks of Linal Haft playing off tart-with-a-heart Buster Skeggs like the old married couple they actually are offstage. Jon-Paul Hevey and Chris Holland are superb as the double-act, spending the first half in knockabout Abbott and Costello style routines, before the second half demands (and gets) nuanced portrayals of men in emotional turmoil. The songs propel the plot rather than, as all too frequently, the reverse, with Holland's first act closing "Luck of the Irish" and the bitter repeated internal monologue of "Betrayal" the standouts.

Though there's probably a cut here and there that would quicken this production's pace and a song or two that could be sung with more conviction, Burlesque is a brave new musical that has much to say about a country, indeed a pan-national culture, that is creeping towards the kind of perversion of human rights Joseph McCarthy's acolytes wrought sixty years ago. Once again, the driver is an inchoate fear of a largely unseen threat inspired by overseas wars. Once again, many of those caught up in the dragnets appear innocent in both senses of the word while the real villains disappear into the night.         

 

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