High Society - Review

Barbican Theatre, London

*****

Music and lyrics by Cole Porter

Book byArthur Kopit

Additional lyrics by Susan Birkenhead

Based on the play "The Phildadephia Story" by Philip Barry

Directed by Rachel Kavanaugh

Julian Ovenden and Helen George

In a glorious whirl through the Great American Songbook, Rachel Kavanaugh’s take on High Society is an immaculately cast revival of Cole Porter’s deliciously frothy yarn.

Drawn originally from the 1939 play The Philadelphia Story, the story opens with divorcee Tracy Lord on the eve of her marriage to George a rather nondescript accountant. Mother Lord and younger sister Dinah are flapping supportively as Dexter, Tracy's dashingly suave ex who still holds a torch for her, turns up as a surprise arrival at the family home for the weekend. Her hitherto estranged father Seth, a disgraceful womaniser also arrives unexpectedly. Lob in a couple of journalist lovebirds and a drunk Uncle Willie and the stage is set. What makes this 2026 revival of such a ridiculously improbable story take flight however is the genius of marrying Cole Porter’s cracking songs to one of the finest character-driven casts in town.

Helen George leads the line as Tracy, the delightfully ditzy and over-privileged heiress who opens the show with the title number, goes on to learn the power of forgiveness and redemption (OK, there is a heart to High Society’s bonkers storyline), making equally fine work of some classily duetted numbers as the story unfolds.

Julian Ovenden plays the dashingly divorced Dexter, a man who is gifted the lion’s share of the show’s songs which he duly smashes out of the park, hit after hit after hit. You Do Something To Me and Once Upon A Time are his softer solos, while his spectacular duets of Be A Clown with Uncle Willie (Nigel Lindsay) and Well, Did You Evah? with journalist Mike (Freddie Fox) take the Barbican's roof off.

Lindsay gets a further chance to show off his singing chops, closing the first half with a spectacular Now You Have Jazz. Matching Ovenden for sheer vocal power and beauty is the always brilliant Carly Mercedes Dyer as Liz (the other aforementioned journalist). In act one Dyer deftly duets with Fox in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? , but it is after the interval, with her mellifluous take on I’ve Got You Under My Skin, that she re-defines this song as her own.

The final singing accolade of the night has to go to David Seadon-Young as George. This accomplished performer has, at Leicester’s Curve over the past two years, perfected the style of the reserved, clipped gentleman whose complexities are unlocked, firstly as Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady and more recently as Georg Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Seadon-Young channels his mastery of this particular style of character into, on this occasion, the far more shallow and two-dimensional George. It’s a modest (albeit critical) role to fill, with only one decent solo to perform, All Of You. Nonetheless he is yet another of this production’s gems.

So much for the songs - the show’s gags have been honed to perfection. All of the above-mentioned actors together with the stellar Felicity Kendal as Mother Lord and Malcolm Sinclair as Seth are terrific, hitting their marks with pinpoint precision and making sure that every gag lands just as intended.

Stephen Ridley's 16-piece band are a blast, Anthony Van Laast choreographs his company of 28 with flair, Tom Rogers’s sets, while designed for the road tour that the show will shortly set out on, is suitably glamorous, while Jon Morrell’s costumes are a fusion of both pastels and vivid brilliance. And as ever, Howard Hudson’s lighting plots enhance the whole affair.

High Society is an evening of pure theatrical pleasure.

Runs until July 11th, then on tour

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Indian Ink - Review

Hampstead Theatre, London

***

Written by Tom Stoppard

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Felicity Kendal and Ruby Ashbourne Serkis

Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink is a time-hopping study on India towards the end of the Raj, that’s written and researched with meticulous detail and acted, in this revival, with equal finesse.

A coquettish young flapper named Flora travels to India in the 1930s to restore her health. A poet with a love for art, as she beds her way across the subcontinent we witness her discovery of the complexities of Indian society and politics. Ruby Ashbourne Serkis plays Flora, as Felicity Kendal plays Mrs Swan, Flora's (now elderly) younger sister who, towards the end of the 20th century, looks back and reflects on her sibling's short, colourful life.

Jonathan Kent directs his cast with pinpoint precision, against Leslie Travers’s ingenious (if sometimes wobbly) set and Peter Mumford’s impressive lighting design, but it’s all just far too long. Stoppard’s attention to the historical minutiae was impressive, but the evening for all its excellence, feels like a tedious, culturally name-checking, three hours. That this 1995 play started out as a 1991 radio drama, In The Native State (that back then, in an enchanting theatrical alignment, starred Felicity Kendal) is revealing, for it is possible that Stoppard's arguments may have been forged more concisely under the discipline of radio.

Indian Ink may perhaps crave yet a further adaptation, this time into a TV mini series such is its richness. On stage today however it feels like a bloated self-indulgence, albeit brilliantly performed.

Runs until 31st January 2026

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Filumena - Review

Theatre Royal, Windsor

***

Written by Eduardo de Filippo

English version by Keith Waterhouse & Willis Hall

Directed by Sean Mathias

Felicity Kendal and Matthew Kelly

Felicity Kendal and Matthew Kelly star in Eduardo de Filippo’s classic Neapolitan folly Filumena, delivering the 1970s translation penned by those stalwarts of modern English literature, Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall.

There are moments of comedy gold in the play's first half, particularly early on, as we learn of Kelly’s cantankerous, philandering Don Domenico being outwitted by his bride Filumena Marturano (Kendal) on the day of their marriage, a union which itself is a formalisation of their hitherto 35-year cohabitation.

Theirs is an unlikely romance. Filumena in her youth was a prostitute and the Don one of her clients, and from there blossomed a prickly love. Kelly and Kendal sparkle in their roles, with an electricity in their sparring that is frequently hilarious.

But Filumena (the play) cannot just rest on Kendal’s seductive, knowing wiles and Kelly’s frequent states of exasperation, brilliantly delivered though they may be. The story’s narrative offers a glimpse into the foibles and strata of 1940s Naples, but what once may have been an enchanting farce now seems dated and wordy. This review will not spoil any of the plot’s reveals, but especially in the second act, the comedy fast evaporates with the story condensing into a yarn that it is difficult to care about.

One imagines that de Filippo's original may well, like a fine chianti or prosciutto, have been steeped in l'italianità, the very essence of Italian culture, that will have added a richness to the tale that would have been recognised and adored by the cognoscenti.  Waterhouse and Hall’s translation however, for all its wit, strips away the beautiful Italian linguistics and the English that they replace it with quite simply lacks a romantic charm.  

The supporting cast – and all credit to producer Bill Kenwright Limited for employing such a large company – are for the most part a talented bunch with standout work from Julie Legrand as the faithful retainer Rosalia, and Jodie Steele as the Don’s latest young squeeze, Diana. 

At Windsor for another week and then touring, Filumena offers an evening of gentle entertainment.

Runs until 19th October and then on tour.

Photo credit: Jack Merriman

Noises Off - Review

Richmond Theatre, London

*****

Written by Michael Frayn

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Felicity Kendal, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Matthew Kelly

Every now and then the planets align to create a production of sheer theatrical genius. So it is with Lindsay Posner’s touring take on Noises Off, currently playing at the Richmond Theatre.

Firstly, the script. Michael Frayn’s farce, penned 40 years ago, is a work of meticulous accuracy as it lays down gags, plots, sub-plots and nuance as we follow a touring theatre company rehearsing and performing the play-within-a-play Nothing On, around which the narrative plays out. Without ever resorting to corniness, Frayn mines the traditional farcical components of slamming doors, trousers around ankles and plot-lines of delicious sauciness. But its not just that Frayn’s text make us laugh, it is that he also offers a witty and at times poignant critique of the human condition – from the frailty of ageing through to alcohol addiction. No word of the script is wasted in the show’s three acts that treat the audience to whirlwind tours backstage and front of house as the plot’s calamitous events unfold.

Next up, the direction. Lindsay Posner has a visionary talent who understands the structure of each of the shows countless laughlines. Posner has form with the play, having directed the Old Vic production in 2011 and it shows. This production is slick, seamless and lifts the audience with its brilliance.

Finally, the cast, and Posner has been gifted a platinum-plated company to work with. The show’s seven key roles (the six characters of Nothing On together with that show’s director) include some of the nation’s finest comic pedigree - and in Noises Off there is no real star. The play only stands on the strengths of its company working as a team, and this team is strong. Felicity Kendal, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Matthew Kelly, Alexander Hanson, Joseph Millson, Jonathan Coy and Sasha Frost are all sublime in their roles that span a raft of characters aged from 70-something through to a glamourous starlet in her 20s. Their timing is honed to split-second accuracy and it is a credit to both actors and director that the show’s physical comedy, that in lesser hands could just be a ridiculous and clumsy distraction, is here delivered to side-splitting perfection. Pepter Lunkuse and Hubert Burton complete the cast list as the stage management team of Nothing On and though less accomplished than the show’s bigger beasts, are equally faultless in their work.

After Richmond, Noises Off heads off to Brighton and then Cambridge. Don’t miss it!

Runs until October 15th, then tours

Photo credit: Nobby Clark