Sweet Charity at Royal Exchange, Manchester
reviewed for The Times, 14 December 2016
Charity Hope Valentine is “just nuts about happy endings”. They tend not to come her way. Our eponymous dance hall hostess doesn’t just wear her heart on her sleeve — it’s tattooed right on her shoulder. Appropriately enough, it’s broken.
Neil Simon’s 1966 Broadway musical has been called everything from naive to reactionary. True, there was always something distasteful about Bob Fosse’s original choreography. In his 1969 film of the musical, nightclub escorts croon Big Spender as they line up for the delectation of customers — and of the viewer. It’s hard for a big number to feel emancipatory when the camera is panning past each singer’s swaying rear.
Feminists, fear not! In this transfixing production for the Royal Exchange, Derek Bond has reclaimed Sweet Charity for the girls. We’re not here to ogle: Big Spender is relocated to the dressing room, where cynical employees mock and belittle their customers. As the leaders of this pack, Cat Simmons and Holly Dale Spencer have trawled Dorothy Field’s lyrics for every latent note of irony. They’re not the only caged animals here: Mark Aspinall conducts Cy Coleman’s score inside a cramped glass orchestra pen at the side of the stage.
In the title role, Kaisa Hammarlund is our idealistic arm candy desperate to find a way out. In one of the musical performances of the year, she is a tornado of vulnerability, hope and resilience. Don’t let anyone tell you that Charity was written as a fool. In Hammarlund, she’s revealed as the most knowing heart in New York; what she knows is that a miracle is her only option. She’s horrified when stodgy boyfriend Oscar (Daniel Crossley) calls her innocent — and she’s not talking about sex.
Perhaps that sounds too heavy for a Christmas show. Don’t fret – this Sweet Charity keeps us shimmying through the heartbreak. Where the satire is softened, it’s in the interests of vitality. Charity and Oscar still visit a hippie church, but the spaced-out cult leader Daddy Brubeck has become a woman of grace and power (Josie Benson). In Bond’s world of radical empathy, there’s no shame in dancing with her.
This is a masterclass in how to stage a musical in a difficult space. The Exchange may be Manchester’s best-established theatre, but it doesn’t have the resources of the West End. Aletta Collins’s choreography is the secret weapon that allows Bond’s show to reverberate through its three-tiered scaffold: you can lose yourself in this ensemble’s geometric lines from any angle.Meanwhile, James Perkins’ bijou design is lush and witty, with a gorgeous scene set on a hot air ballon. It’s not a traditional Christmas show, but this Sweet Charity is definitely a Christmas treat.
