★★★

“his command of accents and impersonation is considerable.”

During Nick Cohen’s “Life with Oscar”, we are increasingly reminded of the old aphorism concerning barks and bites. Or perhaps, more appropriately, that thing about tins and what is said on them. Cohen may be barking mad, but his seventy-minute show about his experiences in Hollywood doesn’t have the bite we were expecting. The marketing copy promises something more dangerous; darker and more revelatory.

Perhaps the anecdotal material is spread too thin. He adopts thirty-one characters in little over an hour after all. He begins as himself, affable and self-deprecatory. A self-confessed wannabe director and actor. Betraying his ‘Theatre de Complicité’ training he whirls us backwards and forwards in time with sharp movements, and his command of accents and impersonation is considerable. It’s quite convoluted, but the main thrust of the narrative is that he is invited to Hollywood by a double Oscar winner who promises Cohen a short cut to his own Oscar win. Preceding this, though, we spend a fair chunk of the evening in the company of the child Cohen – precocious yet naïve, and programmed to fulfil the failed dreams of his celebrity parents.

The dream that Cohen takes to ‘La La Land’ with him is an unformed idea for a short film. The escapades that follow are similarly unformed and sometimes anticlimactic. And although we are asked to believe that each anecdote is verbatim, we are aware of the artistic licence taken. And therein lies the frustration. Cohen plays with the truth too gently. We are enticed by the promise of portraits of the psychopaths, the crazies, the predators and the prey. A descent into the madness of Tinseltown. But it is gentler than that. A comfortable performer, Cohen doesn’t always have a tight hold on our attention and the multitude of characters often pass by in a blur.

He has chosen a theme that is well documented already on film and in modern literature. We are obviously not expecting the outrageous excess of Damien Chazelle’s ‘Babylon’, nor the incisive prose of Budd Schulberg’s ‘The Disenchanted’. However, we are let down by Cohen’s inconsequential and indulgent writing. Writing that never quite hits its target. He talks of eventually escaping Hollywood, yet we never get the sense that he was trapped there. He equates his producer friend’s illusory promise of securing him an Oscar with the failure of the American Dream. This self-aggrandising is at odds with the self-deprecating modesty that informs the comedy of the piece – Cohen is better at mocking himself than the famous names he keeps dropping.

“Life with Oscar” isn’t quite what it says on the tin. Cohen has prised open the lid to give us a glimpse of what might be inside, but we are left thinking that he has less to tell us than what’s on the label. He can certainly spin a yarn, though, and the show is peppered with good humour. But ultimately a bit of an anti-climax.

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN at the New Wimbledon Theatre

★★

“the full, immensely talented, company give it their all as they wade through the likes of Madonna, Bon Jovi, Cyndi Lauper, Blondie, Hall & Oates, Status Quo… and the list goes on”

Picture the scene; in some non-descript boardroom as the initial production meeting for a new musical unfolds. As is the current trend, a successful movie is on the table undergoing the duke box treatment. The person, or persons (no one is actually credited), responsible for compiling the song list has their mind elsewhere. Or, more likely, they didn’t even show up for the brief. The memo in their inbox was enough. It’s the nineteen-eighties!

It’s difficult to decide whether the music is shoehorned into the book, or the thin wisps of script have been tacked onto a compilation CD from somebody’s forty-year-old record collection. Whichever, the result is a union that makes little sense. “An Officer and a Gentleman – the Musical” might have been a good idea at the time, but nobody has really thought it through.

Based on the successful romantic drama film starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger, the musical adaptation’s book is by Douglas Day Stewart and Sharleen Cooper Cohen (Stewart wrote the original film, based on his own experiences as a Naval Aviation Officer Candidate). It was four decades ago now, and very much of its time. There was a toughness underlying the romance and it delved into the lives of down-trodden characters. Although faithful to the original story, the inclusion of the musical numbers in Nikolai Foster’s revival displaces depth of character leaving us with a sense of bemusement as each anthemic chorus blasts its way into the auditorium.

Behind the wall of sound, the story follows Zack Mayo (Luke Baker) through his training as an aviation officer. Whilst continually in conflict with the hard-hitting, sadistic Sergeant Foley (Jamal Kane Crawford) he finds solace, and love (of sorts), in local factory worker Paula Pokrifki (Georgia Lennon). Meanwhile fellow candidate, Sid Worley (Paul French) starts dating Paula’s best friend Lynette Pomeroy (Sinead Long). Both men have been forewarned that local girls will use pregnancy to entrap an officer, seeking a way out of their humdrum lives. This forms a sizeable chunk of the narrative, steering one of the officers towards tragedy, while the other heads off towards his climactic happy ending.

The presentation, it has to be said, is impressive. Michael Taylor’s set mixes warm neons with imposing industrial frameworks while Ben Cracknell’s lighting creates the moods that the banal dialogue fails to convey. There are some odd choices in the songs’ arrangements, but Musical Director Christopher Duffy and his five-piece band pull it off like they’re playing to Wembley’s Twin Towers (remember – it’s the eighties!). Joanna Goodwin’s choreography is a real spectacle, although again, there’s little to suggest that she’d read the script. And the full, immensely talented, company give it their all as they wade through the likes of Madonna, Bon Jovi, Cyndi Lauper, Blondie, Hall & Oates, Status Quo… and the list goes on. And as the show goes on, it becomes increasingly difficult to match what we are hearing with what we are seeing. We wonder how Hall & Oates’ ironic ditty, ‘Family Man’, can underscore tragic (and fatal) heartbreak. An awkward dinner date precedes Heart’s ‘Alone’, delivered with disproportionate bombast. Histrionics has indeed overthrown emotion in this disjointed patchwork of a variety show.

Douglas Day Stewart’s film just happened to be written, released and set in the eighties. But at the time it didn’t define the decade. It seems bizarre that Stewart would allow the level of disrespect to his writing that is being shown here. Never mind the anticipated accusations that the story is inherently dated and misogynous. It’s just homogenous. Which is a shame as it has the potential to court controversy and inspire debate. Instead, we have Helen Reddy’s ‘I Am Woman’, juxtaposed with James Brown’s ‘It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World’, drained of the lyric’s original meaning. On the plus side, though, the songs are all crowd pleasers, and there is passion in the performances; even if nowhere else.

LIFE WITH OSCAR at the Arcola Theatre

★★★

“his command of accents and impersonation is considerable.”

LIFE WITH OSCAR at the Arcola Theatre

Reviewed on 3rd April 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by G Taylor

Previously reviewed at this venue:

LIFE WITH OSCAR

LIFE WITH OSCAR

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN at the New Wimbledon Theatre

★★

“the full, immensely talented, company give it their all as they wade through the likes of Madonna, Bon Jovi, Cyndi Lauper, Blondie, Hall & Oates, Status Quo… and the list goes on”

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN at the New Wimbledon Theatre then UK Tour continues

Reviewed on 2nd April 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Marc Brenner

Best shows in March 2024:

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN