A gender-switch production of Company is a triumph.
I CONFESS. I was sceptical when I heard that Company, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, was to be recast with a female lead. I have fond memories of the show on Broadway in 1970, when it struck me as a daringly brilliant musical about the dilemma of a 35-year-old unattached male. What, I wondered, could be gained by turning Robert into Bobbie?
Having now seen Marianne Elliott’s version, starring Rosalie Craig, at the Gielgud, I am entirely won over. This is, quite simply, the best musical in London.
The gender switch makes sense in myriad ways. The plight of a single woman, ever aware of the ticking biological clock, seems more intense than that of a man. Where Robert emerged as a cold fish, Miss Craig makes Bobbie a vibrant personality who would happily settle for a husband if only she could find the right man.
Bobbie still views her married friends with an amused curiosity,but there’s a crucial moment in which Miss Craig encounters three potential life partners: when the one she most fancies, subtly played by Matthew Seadon-Young, reveals that he’s leaving New York to get married, you see Miss Craig’s expressive features quiver with disappointment.
Denne historien er fra November 07, 2018-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra November 07, 2018-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
