Photo Credit: Mike Kwasniak
The tale of Sweet Charity is one as old as time. Charity Hope Valentine is a girl who just wants to be loved. She’d like to find the right guy, settle down, with a cottage in the country that has roses around the door, and live happily ever after.
However, the ‘fickle finger of fate’ hasn’t dealt Charity a very good hand and she works as a dance hall hostess in a crummy joint in downtown New York where nice guys just don’t go. But Charity keeps trying and she’s ever optimistic and hopeful.
Photo Credit: Mike Kwasniak
The show oozes the swinging scene out of every pore; from the sets, costumes, music and dancing it’s a vibrant and stylised musical that just screams the 1960’s. It is also a show full of warmth, heart and humour, like when each scene is prefaced with a cast member holding up a cardboard speech bubble to let us know what’s happening next. What with this, the cool cat vibes and pop art posters you sense you’re in for an evening that’s quirky and fun.
Photo Credit: Mike Kwasniak
Sweet Charity is also a musical stuffed with great, and some very famous, numbers. Only a few minutes in they hit you with Hey Big Spender and from then on the classics keep coming.
IODS are well known for their professionalism and high standards and you really don’t think you’re watching an amateur production. Sweet Charity isn’t an easy musical to do, despite the well known soundtrack and famous film version, which means it is very well known; it’s overly long ( Act 1 is an hour and a half) and has a problematic ending for modern times, but don’t let either of these things put you off, because the cast are terrific.
Photo Credit: Mike Kwasniak
Emily Watt is phenomenal as Charity. She’s rarely off stage and has some huge song and dance numbers, like If they Could See Me Now and I’m A Brass Band, to pull off, but boy does she achieve that. I could have been watching a west end star, she is that accomplished. She’s also incredibly funny, with more than a hint of classic Lucille Ball in her comedy ( look her up if you don’t know who I’m talking about).
As well as the music another iconic element to Sweet Charity is it’s choreography. There’s a lot of dance in this show, which was originally conceived, staged and choreographed by Bob Fosse, who was legendary in the dance world, and gave us the ‘look’ we associate with the musicals Cabaret and Chicago.
Photo Credit: Mike Kwasniak
IODS choreographer Luke Berry keeps the style of the dance moves perfectly especially in the monochrome club scene with The Aloof, The Heavyweight and The Big Finish, three dance numbers as famous as any of the songs from the score.
Notable mentions must also go to leads Hevin Harmer as Oscar Lindquist, Charlotte Duff as Ursula and Owen Berry as Vitorrio Vidal, who has a wonderful singing voice.
Personal favourites of mine though were Laura Mayhew as Nickie and Abbie McQuitty as Helene, Charity’s best friends at the Fandango Club. They have some great comedic lines delivered with sassy New Yorker wit, but underneath you can see and feel their vulnerability and how they ache to get away – the number the three ladies share, There’s Got To Be Something Better Than This, is a highlight.
Photo Credit: Mike Kwasniak
It’s great to have a live band to accompany the cast and I must mention them too as they were amazing. One point though on sound was the levels were a bit hit and miss when it came to mics, (not everyone seemed to be mic’d up?) and the volume of the band versus the singing, but these could just be a few first night glitches that’ll soon get ironed out.
It’s definitely worth going to see such a great show right on our doorstep.
Sweet Charity runs until Saturday 13th July at the New Wolsey Theatre – tickets are available online at the New Wolsey Website or by calling the box office on 01473 295900
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