This is a review of Crossed Keys Musical Theatre’s production of ‘Boogie Nights’ which is taken in its entirety from www.behindthearras.com
“THE Seventies live on! More specifically, it is 1977, because that was the year when Elvis Presley died, and the father of the unpleasant character who shares the show’s central pairing with the sparklingly pretty Karen Pickering is an Elvis devotee.
Karen plays Debs, whom the programme describes as bold and brassy – but that is not the message that comes across in Pat Sherrington-Blane’s tumultuous production. Debs here is the badly-treated girl friend of a young man who doesn’t deserve her. Certainly, she is spirited, but this is usually in a defensive role, against his latest outlandish bit of behaviour – and she emerges as the girl with a bad man but a very good voice.
The anti-hero, the fly in the ointment, is Roddy. Again, the evidence is at odds with the programme. Certainly, it is right to describe him as a ladies’ man, but the “oodles of charm” bit is missing from Simon Chinery’s account. There’s a line that strikes a more appropriate chord: “You get what you fancy, then you see what your mate’s got and you want some of his.”
It seems to me that here we have an actor who recognises what he has been given and who gets on with breathing life, however unsavoury, into his script. This is a pleasing performance, with its successive numbers punched out with panache and the surprising, but apparently essential, American accent.
Back to the programme, this time in its description of Trish, best friend of Debs “and the plainer of the twosome.”
It’s a throwaway injustice! We are talking here of the girl with one of the two loveliest smiles on stage – the other adding particular illumination to the happy and hard-working chorus. Trish is played by Ruth Johnson, who invests her with a gentle credibility that ensures that her personality is as pleasing as that smile. She also gives her, just once, a hilarious snort of a laugh that was much appreciated by the first-night audience.
Neil Pickering, as her boyfriend Terry, pitches purposefully into his role as the show’s built-in nerd. Richard Perks is strong as Spencer, the singer with the band who scores in its version of YMCA. Rachel Fisher (Lorraine) is equally at home as the singer who is Spencer’s girl, and Mark Robert Jones adds a touch of smartness and some brisk movement as Dean, the DJ at the club.
The surprise of the evening is Dennis Hoccom’s Eamon, the Elvis fan – the likable garage mechanic with an earthy conversational tone who reveals a pleasing singing voice when the opportunity eventually arrives.
It is a happy evening, its story shaped to accord with successive hits of 30 years ago – and it is a story embellished with lines like “At least she’s having sex with one of your friends, not a complete stranger” and “I’m talking about the miracle of childbirth and you have to bring sex into it.”
It’s fun. It loses a point only for its inability to avoid including one of those unsavoury nose-picking moments. This is a show, and this is a company, with far more to offer than that. To 12.6.10.”
John Slim
officeboxoffice@birmingham.gov.uk
0121 303 2323
