Date Reviewed: 14th October, 2008
Venue: The Opera House

John Updike’s celebrated novel, The Witches of Eastwick, was a multi-layered Faustian parable, examining the sexual and social mores of conservative east-coast America. The successful movie adaptation managed to retain the book’s sense of fun whilst examining the gender politics and small-minded hysteria that can greet women who are ostracised for having a good time.

The musical version, however, is a somewhat flatter prospect, never successfully working as a perky romp, or as a macabre black comedy.

Eastwick, Massachusetts. The 1950s. The perfect, wholesome all-American town, fuelled by gossip, whispers, moral outrage, and the tut-tuttings of chief busybody Felicia Gabriel (Rachel Izen.)  Three lonely single women, Sukie, (Rebecca Thornhill) Alexandra (Ria Jones) and Jane (Poppy Tierney) make a wish - for their dream man - over their weekly martinis. And, lo and behold, he promptly arrives, in the shape of rude and racy Darryl Van Horne (Marti Pellow.) With the town’s collective tongue wagging, the three women embark on a swinging relationship with the horniest little devil of them all.

Two high-profile attempts at this musical in the West End have warranted some substantial re-writes for the new version seen here.  However, the piece remains fundamentally flawed, both structurally and thematically, and is a jarring mix of upbeat musical comedy and sexually-charged witchcraft.  Some of the songs (”Dirty Laundry” and “Words, Words, Words”, for example) are superb, and highlight John Dempsey and Dana P Rowe’s musical dexterity.

Personally, I would have retained “I Love A Little Town” over the new, uninspiring “Darryl Van Horne” any day. The show is also saddled with a patchy script, some sluggish pacing, and a lack of irony, which sometimes makes the evening drag slightly.

Nikolai Foster’s direction is uncharacteristically vague, reducing most of the action to a small area centre stage, and encouraging some hammy turns from the company. Peter Mckintosh’s white clapboard set evokes east-coast Americana, and a sense of cartoony fun, and the flying sequences are especially slick and well-handled.  Geoffrey Garratt’s choreography is fine, but never really lifts the large company numbers into soaring spectacle.

The biggest problem of the evening, though, is Pellow (so good as Billy Flynn in Chicago) in the lead role. It’s a difficult part, but his Van Horne comes across as tacky and sleazy, rather than seductive, and is unnecessarily hammy at times.  Though in possession of a superb singing voice, he’s not helped by a wavering accent and never quite nails the sense of fun and enigma that are meant to make him so alluring.

The witches, however, are utterly splendid. Three superb voices, well-realised characterisation, and a perfectly judged sense of tone.  If Tierney’s Jane is slightly less convincing, it’s only because she shares the stage with Thornhill and Jones. They both give superb, polished performances, and command the stage with sexy poise and brilliant readings of the songs. In an ideal world, every musical would have one (or both!) of these outstanding actresses in it.

A mixed evening, overall, but the crowd on the night I attended loved it.  Some great performances and a good story save the day in the end, but if the producers were prepared to re-write large chunks of the show, I can’t help but wish that they’d got it spot-on, instead of nearly there.

-Matthew Nichols

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