★★½

“George Renshaw as Harry Wotton gives a show stealing solo performance”

Oscar Wilde seems to be having a bit of a moment. There is a production of The Importance of Being Earnest upcoming at the National Theatre, and The Picture of Dorian Gray was recently staged with Succession star Sarah Snook bagging an Olivier for her performance. Now the Southwark Playhouse is putting on a musical adaptation of Dorian Gray.

In this version, with book and direction by Linnie Reedman and music & lyrics by Joe Evans, Dorian is an overnight online sensation, taken in by the music industry who promise him his youthful beauty can live forever through his music. There are some oblique references to the 27 club of famous musicians who died young and versions of Wilde’s original characters who inadvertently guide Dorian towards his eventual end.

The main challenge with this adaptation is that, conceptually, it just doesn’t work. A musical set in the modern era, that purports to explore how social media affects our perception of beauty can’t just throw in a couple of references to Dorian having gone viral on YouTube, cocaine fuelled industry parties, or things being ‘all over the newspapers… and also social media’. Equally the costume and set (Isabella Van Braeckel), are more Victorian gothic than modern, although the set is successfully reminiscent of a recording studio – multiple Moroccan carpets strewn across the floor, LPs and guitars on the walls and piled with books and bric-a-brac. The story needs greater integration of the contemporary themes it claims to explore in the adaptation to pull it off – or else a straight 19th century adaptation would do.

More heinously though, to evoke the spirits of some of rock and pops greatest talents – Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse – the music and lyrics have got to attempt to match. At a minimum, the music has to lean more ‘pop’ than musical theatre. But all the music is drab and dull, seemingly inspired more by the gothic musicals Phantom of the Opera or Sweeney Todd, but without any of the musicality or lyricism of Lloyd-Weber or Sondheim.

The casting unfortunately doesn’t help matters. Alfie Friedman as Dorian Gray has a very musical theatre voice, with plenty of vibrato, opening the show with a number about living forever that has the potential for a pop-rock ballad inspired by Queen’s, but is instead memorable only in its blandness. There are some exceptions of course. George Renshaw as Harry Wotton gives a show stealing solo performance of Where the Yellow Roses Grow, a highlight of the second act with his intelligent interpretation of the tune. Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson and Megan Hill as Sybil/Fabian Vane are also strong vocalists and being much needed comic relief, particularly in the second act.

Overall, Dorian: The Musical gives sixth-form production energy due to the safe but bland musical numbers, some odd directorial choices, and the half-baked ‘contemporary’ setting. Saved from the abyss by some stand out performances, including a superb guitar solo from a member of the live band, this piece will most appeal to Wilde superfans rather than the masses.

BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF at the Garrick Theatre

★★★

“the work feels constrained by its loyalty to the original series”

James Graham’s latest stage play following smash hit ‘Dear England’ is another piece that seeks to show us something about the state of the nation, albeit this time from a historical, rather than contemporary, lens. Boys from the Blackstuff is an adaptation of Alan Bleasdale’s 1982 TV drama, considered among the best TV dramas of the twentieth century and currently available on BBC iPlayer. Now playing at the Garrick Theatre after transferring from the Liverpool Royal Court via the National Theatre, it’s a piece that attempts to both act as a faithful homage to the much-loved series, whilst introducing the blackstuff to younger audiences more likely to assume it’s in reference to the decline of mining towns than out of work tarmac layers.

Despite some suggestions that the play is just as relevant today, if not more so, than it was on TV release in 1982, this is most definitely a period piece. Unemployment in the UK in the early 1980s reached more than 10%, a far cry from the current national average of 4%. But in Liverpool, unemployment reached a whopping 20%, double the national average, following the collapse of the shipping industry and shedding of workers by major employers that were or still are common household names: United Biscuits, Tate and Lyle, Kellogg’s and Schweppes. Whilst this trend of higher-than-average unemployment persists in Liverpool today, the scale of the challenge is incomparable to what was experienced some 40 years ago.

Some of the underlying causes for this are explored in the play with characters providing theories from economics to geography. But ultimately, the ensemble piece shows how all the boys: Chrissie, Yosser, George, Dixie, Loggo and Snowy; are all most concerned with how they will survive, quite literally, as breadwinners for their families.

It takes a while for each of the characters to develop beyond surface level for several reasons. In Act One, the too short scenes are punctuated by over-choreographed set changes accompanied by the singing of an adapted Irish folk song, meaning conversations feel stunted. Time is also given to comic moments seemingly dropped in from the series that are not particularly sophisticated but got big laughs from the crowd.

All this results in a simplisitic portrayal of ‘good’ boys just trying to provide for themselves and their families picking up casual work and claiming the giro vs. the evil staff at the Department for Employment. Things do improve in Act Two, but it’s too long coming, meaning when Snowy dies after being chased by the dole-snoopers, we know too little about him to really care.

The most developed character is Yosser Hughes (Barry Sloane), the most forceful and fearsome of the group. Sloane’s portrayal of a man in the midst of a mental breakdown is rousing, aided by Kate Wasserberg’s choice to have him speak to his kids without them appearing on stage in an otherwise realist piece. This is explained at the show’s climax to devastating effect. But alongside this quite tragic arc, Sloane must continually regurgitate Yosser’s ‘gizza job’ catch phrase, which again may work on TV spread out over many episodes, but wore thin after it’s umpteenth hearing.

One of the piece’s saving grace’s is Amy Jane Cook’s set and costume design which feels fresh and exciting, with ominous cranes like fossilized relics of Liverpool’s once glorious past towering over the action. But on the whole, the work feels constrained by its loyalty to the original series, with the potential for more tension and drama in a more radical interpretation, rather than the apparently faithful condensation of a five-part series to a 2.5-hour stage production.

DORIAN: THE MUSICAL at Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★½

“George Renshaw as Harry Wotton gives a show stealing solo performance”

DORIAN: THE MUSICAL at Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 10th July 2024

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Danny Kaan

More shows reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

DORIAN

DORIAN

BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF at the Garrick Theatre

★★★

“the work feels constrained by its loyalty to the original series”

BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF at the Garrick Theatre

Reviewed on 18th June 2024

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Alastair Muir

Boys From the Blackstuff was originally commissioned and produced by Liverpool Royal Court

Previously reviewed at the Garrick Theatre:

BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF

BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF