Dames at Sea

Synopsis

With Stars in her eyes, a prayer in her heart and only a pair of tap shoes in her suitcase, young Ruby arrives on Broadway to find her fame and fortune. In true musical fashion she lands a part in the chorus and falls in love... But life is not plain sailing. It's opening night and the theatre is about to be demolished. Will they find another venue...? Of course the show must go on... but on board a US Navy Battleship? With show stopping dance routines, comedy, romance and a leading lady who suffers from sea-sickness, Dames at Sea is the affectionate spoof of 1940's movie musicals for everyone who's ever tapped their feet. She climbed on board a youngster and disembarked a Star! A musical bursting with Busby Berkley nostalgia.

Our Review:

17 August 2005

I’ve had a week of watching new takes on old shows. Having taken in an updated HMS Pinafore and a modern version of a Plautus play - productions where there were constant knowing references to the weaknesses of the plots and the implausibilities - it made a change to watch a production that made an attempt to hide the underlying preposterousness of the story. In their 1968 spoof of 1930s musicals, George Haimsohn and Robin Miller relish all the longeurs – and add a few of their own.

Dames at Sea contains every musical cliché going: sailors - check; the impossible star - check; the ingénue who’s going to seize her opportunity -check. In fact, the only thing missing is the gangster sub-plot – but then any sort of sub-plot would have been useful here.

What this show reminds me of are the musical numbers that used to appear on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials. They’d spend 10 minutes triumphantly sending up an aspect of the genre, making plenty of people...

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Latest User Review

217.206.150.23) - 31 August 2005:

I think the WOS reviewer of this must have been in a bad mood when he/she went to see it. I found this show to be delightfully charming, full of wit, and played with tongue fully in cheek. The reviewer claimed the songs are forgotten after 10 minutes - I spent all my journey back to London humming Raining In My Heart, and today found myself humming Star Tar. Performances were first class, especially Tim Flavin and the always wonderful Kathryn Evans - which is this woman not a star? I saw this show at the Ambassadors as part of the Covent Garden Festival a number of years ago, which I enjoyed, but this production surpasses it in every way and I fully intend going back again....

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