Merrily We Roll Along review, Harold Pinter Theatre

Stephen Sondheim is to musicals, what jazz is to pop. He creates mean and complex harmonies and you can smell genius in the riffs, but you don't always hear it unless blessed with a musical ear. So it is, that this reviewer has merrily rolled along and past any theatre entrance where one of his shows is playing. Sod's law, however, dictated that spare tickets were waved in this direction and tonight was spent at the Harold Pinter Theatre laughing loudly through Merrily We Roll Along.

Pulling Frank

Merrily We Roll Along is the story of three friends cast asunder by showbiz greed. Frank and Charley are collaborators whose early promise as writers of musicals has been compromised by Frank's hunger for money. Handsome and driven, Frank has been ditched by Charley who loathes his friend's colourful but creatively corrupt Hollywood life. Only Mary, now a drunk, links the two. The show opens on a Hollywood pool party full of studio folk and starlets. It's a celebration hosted by Frank and his sour second wife, the diva, Gussie. It's a louche, soulless, lifestyle for which Mary, mourning Frank's failure to reconcile with Charley and rediscover their early promise, verbally disembowels him to glorious effect and exits stage right.

We then roll backwards through time, sorting through the layers of the friendships. Within a twenty first century context, Frank's thinking may be mercenary, but it's sound. Tripping back from the 1980s to the 1950s however, we are reminded of the hope that fuelled the behaviour of the Baby Boomers. Frank's conservatism feels like laziness: a reluctance to go the extra mile and develop the originality and early promise that may have offered fulfilment as well as funds. There's a terrific Saturday Live type skit on the Kennedys and Maria Friedman's careful direction ensures the story works, even though middle aged actors aren't always convincing as teenagers. The music works too...

In Conclusion: Merrily We Roll Along is great fun. Even those of us with an unknown woman alongside, rustling a bag of peanut brittle throughout the first half while noisily breaking bits off to crunch loudly, sending nutty toffee wafts up and down the rows as she chewed on the dust open-mouthed, remained immersed in the action.

References
Harold Pinter Theatre, Tickets
Ian Shuttleworth review in the FT

Harold Pinter Theatre, Panton Street, SW1Y 4DN    Production ends 27 July