Musical: The Boy Friend
Menier Chocolate Factory, London SE1 (020-7378 1713). Until 7 March Running time: 2hrs 25mins ★★★★
Sandy Wilson’s 1953 musical
The Boy Friend, centering on the laughably “low-stakes romantic mishaps” of a group of English toffs on the French Riviera in the 1920s, is “an exercise in frothy escapism so extreme it’s basically trolling us”, said Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out. This is “not so much a musical, as a lobotomy with songs”. The scenario, in which all’s well that ends well for the lovelorn, sundrenched young aristos at Madame Dubonnet’s finishing school, should “by all rights be a clarion call to class war”. Yet handled well, as in this expert revival by Matthew White, The Boy Friend somehow wins you over: it is “so wilfully silly and utterly delightful that you want to give each of the daft rich people a tickle between the ears” – and there’s real pleasure to be had from watching a crack cast “aerobically Charlestoning with military precision”.
One reason it succeeds so well is that “light irony never descends into camp knowingness”, said Michael Billington in The Guardian. The material, as frivolous as it may be, is taken seriously. It’s a lovely evening for dark times, in which the “lightness and elegant wit of Wilson’s lyrics, with abundant simple skipping rhymes, seems to charge the actors with a runaway glee”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. There are memorable performances by Amara Okereke, Janie Dee and Adrian Edmondson, among others. And
Bill Deamer’s choreography is a “delightful flapper-age confection of daffy head flicks, circular hand movements, kittenish back kicks” and all kinds of eye-popping, “lithelimbed carry-on”. There is tapdance, there’s tango, and “it’s a shame there aren’t crash-courses in the Charleston on offer, because the urge to join in is fairly irresistible”.
Yes, it’s all very jolly, said Dominic Maxwell in The Times. And designer Paul Farnsworth’s beautiful shiny-floored blue set and vivid costumes are delectable. But for all the skill on show, this is not quite the “perfect piffle” it aspires to be. The period-pastiche songs are “adept rather than inspired”; and ultimately, it’s hard to fall in love with a story that’s so “terribly, terribly slight”. “Everybody’s doing the Riviera”, they sing – and they “do it very well. What they don’t entirely sell us on is why.”