The Sound of Music (tour – Norwich)
At the time of its first London production, I remember being disappointed in the staging of The Sound of Music. That’s certainly not the feeling received from Jeremy Sams’ touring production designed by Robert Jones. It’s flexible, fast-moving and puts proper weight on the political background of the story as well as allowing space for all those well-known tunes. Extremely effective results are obtained by deceptively simple means.
Maria is a tricky role to get right, with its blend of puppy enthusiasms and moral (if not social) certainties. Verity Rushworth looks the part but seems a little challenged by some of the tessitura of her music. Michael Praed is excellent as Captain von Trapp, not playing th role for sympathy but giving us a man of genuine convictions, convictions somehow mislaid by Martin Callaghan’s wryly adaptable Max and Jacinta Mulcahy’s thoroughly credible Baroness.
The small children are a delight, with the audience right on their side from the first entrance to the escape after the Salzburg concert, especially the miniature and pigtailed Gretl. At the end, there was a genuine standing ovation, not just the sort of first-night event orchestrated by friends of the cast. I think that quite a number would have been prepared to sit through the whole musical again. Immediately.
