Reviews

They’re Playing Our Song (Hornchurch, Queen’s Theatre)

| Off-West End |

12 March 2013

Opposites, they say,
attract. Take (for example) one classically-trained and slightly
up-tight musician from an educated New York Jewish family. Then pair
him with a kooky kitten of a lyricist with a Bohemian lifestyle and a
dress sense to match (charity shop purchases and wardrobe left-overs
from failed touring productions her speciality). You might say that
their respective agents would have a lot to be responsible for.

Except, of course, that
these two are Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager – Vernon
Gersch and Sonia Walsk as they become in Neil Simon‘s version of
the real-life story. Set and costume designer Nancy Surman and
lighting designer Mark Dymock do director Matt Devitt proud in
this new staging of They’re Playing Our Song;
Sonia’s cocktail dress, feathered with more marabout than
Ginger Rogers is as effective as the swirling swoops of lights.

Both the leads are
good. Sarah Mahony makes you believe in Sonia’s attempts to control
a life which is rapidly escaping her control and that she really can
write good verse – making the creative process credible on stage
and in films is notoriously tricky. Dan de Cru plays the piano with
panache and is both funny and likeable as Vernon. These two are
backed by musical director Greg Last and Barbara Hockaday as
their alter egos.

Mahony makes much of
her “Just for tonight” and “I still believe in love”
numbers and the title song, which makes the finale reprise, measures
up to the first collaboration “Workin’ it out”. Of course,
that’s just what these two people do. There’s some witty choreography
devised by Donna Berlin but it’s a pity that the stage management
is so much in evidence for the scene-location changes – that leaves
the audience too much time to recognise the superficiality under the decoration.