London

MOLLY WOBBLY
book, music and lyrics by Paul Boyd.

Leicester Square Theatre 6 Leicester Place WC2H 7BX To 14 March 2015.
Tue–Sat 7pm except 31 Jan 4pm & 8pm.
Runs 2 hr One interval.

TICKETS: 08448 733433.
www.leicestersquaretheatre.com
Review: William Russell 29 January.

On the way to the Grail.
The holy grail of the high camp musical is to come-up with another Rocky Horror Show. Molly Wobbly, with judicious use of the blue pencil and deletion of one filthy number in Act Two – ‘One Night Stand’ – might just turn out to be that.

The action takes place on Mammary Lane, Little Happening, and concerns three unsatisfactorily married couples into whose lives comes a grotesque figure called Ithanku, sporting a head of green hair and dispensing a potion which has interesting side effects.

There is nothing wrong with double entendres but crude is something else altogether. ‘One Night Stand’, while delivered with some style by Alan Richardson as a drag queen called Kitten, would not pass muster done by a third-rate drag act in a down-market gay bar in Sitges. It has no place in the show and simple lets down what has gone before and what comes after.

Molly Wobbly desperately needs a director who can stand back and very firmly say no to things, no matter how precious to the author they may be. That said Paul Boyd’s lyrics are witty, his book very amusing, while his tunes are catchy and the kind you leave the theatre humming.

In a better theatre – the show is staged in the small studio space in the depths of the Leicester Square Theatre – it could thrive. As for the cast, they are all very good indeed, with Conleth Kane as Jake, a camp Irish hairdresser who looks at times remarkably like Damien Lewis, particularly funny.

Whether large breasts are what every woman dreams of is perhaps debatable, but there are enough Page Three ladies in the world to suggest that quite a lot of them do. The women who want uplift in their lives, Cassie Compton as downtrodden Jemma, Stephanie Fearon as gorgeous, unsatisfied Ruth and Jane Milligan as statuesque Margaret, who dreams of becoming a designer of red carpet gowns, perform with great gusto matched by the men in their lives.

Bad taste wobbles apart, which can be fixed, Molly Wobbly, tuneful and hilarious, deserves a long and happy future elsewhere.

Jemma: Cassie Compton.
Ruth: Stephanie Fearon.
Margaret: Jane Milligan.
Jake: Conleth Kane.
Robbie: Christopher Finn.
Malcolm: Ashley Knight.
Kitten: Alan Richardson.
Ithanku: Russell Morton.

Director: Paul Boyd.
Designer: Diego Pitarch.
Lighting: Tom Kitney.
Sound: Jonny Dickie.
Musical Director: Matthew Reeve.
Choreographer: Sarah Johnston.
Costume: Christopher Nicholl, Susannah Pal, Samantha Frost.

2015-01-30 09:12:18