HIGH SOCIETY at The Mill at Sonning

★★★★

“An elegant production. A swell party indeed. What a swellegant, elegant party this is!”

There’s a bit of a bluesy, Southern vibe about the Mill at Sonning’s “High Society”; as though we’re on the banks of the Mississippi rather than Long Island’s North Shore. Yet at the same time there’s a feel-good fifties swing that flits between the New York plaza suites and a high school prom reunion. For the senses this is an intoxicating mix that makes you feel as lightheaded as the bubbles in the constantly flowing champagne onstage. It takes a little while, however, for it to find its flavour.

The musical draws from the 1939 play ‘A Philadelphia Story’ and the 1956 musical film ‘High Society’. The original Cole Porter songs are all there, with others from his catalogue thrown into the mix for the stage version, slotting into the narrative with varying degrees of success. A narrative that is, on the surface, flimsy, flirtatious and fun. There is some underlying social commentary about class, but overall, it is a backdrop to the music, and it relies on the delivery and the snappy dialogue. Joe Pitcher’s revival focuses on the razzmatazz with glitzy performances from the lead players, ensemble and musicians alike.

It is the summer of 1958, an evening aglow with a warm setting sun. Preparations are underway for the wedding of society-divorcee Tracy Lord (Victoria Serra) and George Kitteridge (Will Richardson). Tracy’s first husband, Dexter Haven (Matt Blaker), gate-crashes events with predictable results as he tries to win back the affections of his first wife. Meanwhile a tabloid newspaper possesses embarrassing information about Tracy’s wayward father and has coerced the family into allowing reporter Mike Conner (Matthew Jeans) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Laura Tyrer) to cover the nuptials. Thus begins a tangled web of romances and revelations.

“the gorgeous splashes of colour from Natalie Titchener’s sumptuous costumes wash across the stage in time to Jaye Elster’s dazzling choreography”

Pitcher’s immersive staging allows the audience to feel like they are guests at the party, the auditorium being an extension to the sumptuous drawing room where most of the action takes place. Chris Whybrow’s sound design evokes the festivities spilling outside; to the gardens, the pool and down to the moonlit beach where Dexter’s yacht is moored. The band wander into and out of view, while the gorgeous splashes of colour from Natalie Titchener’s sumptuous costumes wash across the stage in time to Jaye Elster’s dazzling choreography. But when the music pauses, for the most part the dialogue lacks the quick-fire lightness of touch that Arthur Kopit’s book requires, leaving the lines to be dragged back by an earnestness that dims the twinkle in these characters’ eyes. There are exceptions. Victoria Serra is quite a force to be reckoned with as Tracy Lord; sometimes angry, often drunk and always playful. Katlo, in her professional debut, is a pure bundle of joy as Lord’s little sister Dinah, and a name to watch out for. When the tabloid hacks waft in to ruffle a few feathers, we get a real sense of the fifties film’s original showmanship and delivery. Jeans’ smooth-talking, all-knowing journalist melts hearts left right and centre while, despite his dubious occupation, his own heart nobly aims Cupid’s arrow away from himself to let ‘true love’ blossom in the correct place.

In fact, none of the performers fail to melt our hearts during the musical numbers. The ensemble harmonies are exquisite, while the solo moments scorch as they weave seamlessly between the smouldering ballads and the flaming Latin passion that fires Cole Porter’s songs, courtesy of Jerome Van Den Berghe’s arrangements. A brave approach, but fans of Cole Porter will not be disappointed. as each cast member take their turn to lend their beautiful vocals.

“High Society”, although not particularly festive, is a Christmas treat that you can’t afford to miss. An elegant production. A swell party indeed. What a swellegant, elegant party this is!

HIGH SOCIETY at The Mill at Sonning

Reviewed on 9th December 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Andreas Lambis

Previously reviewed at this venue:

It’s Her Turn Now | ★★★ | October 2023

Gypsy | ★★★★★ | June 2023

Top Hat | ★★★★ | November 2022

Barefoot in the Park | ★★★★ | July 2022

High Society

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★★★

“the play as a whole is genuinely very funny”

Meeting for a secret liaison in the Westminster Hotel, Tory junior minister Rebecca Willey gleefully urges special advisor to the opposition, John Worthington, to put on his “jim-jams” in preparation for the night of adultery ahead. The champagne and oysters are already on their way by the time Willey pulls back the curtains only to discover a limp body hanging across the windowsill. Attempting to move the body out of the hotel suite and evade discovery, any plans for the night are completely derailed as Willey (Elizabeth Elvin), Worthington (Raphael Bar), and Mrs. Willey’s PA, Georgia Pigden (Felicity Duncan) are tangled in an increasingly ludicrous web of lies.

‘It’s Her Turn Now’, adapted by Michael J. Barfoot and directed by David Warwick, is a gender-swapped take on Ray Cooney’s classic farce ‘Out of Order’. All of the action takes place in one room, a hotel suite set brilliantly designed by Alex Marker. A number of doors and, of course, the central sash window, allow the characters to revolve dizzyingly across the stage as Willey stands at the centre and struggles to maintain control as her life, and later her government, falls apart around her. This makes for some great moments of physical comedy, especially in Willey and Pigden’s manipulation of the corpse, and the play as a whole is genuinely very funny.

The central change replaces Cooney’s original male MP Richard Willey with the female MP Rebecca Willey, and the swap is quite effective, thanks in large part to Elvin and Duncan’s excellent performances as the conniving Mrs. Willey and the unfortunately implicated Georgia Pigden, respectively. The new dynamics that emerge refresh the play out of the overdone, and Barfoot’s writing plays on the swap humorously. That said, it nevertheless remains very safe, and somehow still manages to feel slightly old-fashioned: every swap, for example, is carefully carried through so that each romantic pairing remains a heterosexual one. The stakes are never really altered in any significant way.

“a refreshingly funny, well-acted and well-done take on the farce”

In a similar vein, despite a few moments of knowing wink-wink reference to the apparently perennially deceitful nature of politics, attempts at political bite are never really genuine: perhaps a missed opportunity, considering the not-so-distant memories of a certain health secretary. This is farce, however, and, while Big Ben looms through the window, the play never purports to be political. Our attention must instead be focused on the microcosm of disaster playing out in this one room.

Characters are rapidly accumulated as Willey, Pigden, and Worthington embroil themselves in deceit. However, as the play progresses, the pleasure of the double-triple-quadruple bluff does dwindle, and the fast and sinuous plotting of the first act is somewhat lost as the play becomes bloated and unwieldy with its own deceptions. I especially thought that the early interactions between Nurse Foster (carer of Pigden’s aging father, played by Jules Brown) and Georgia Pigden were a missed opportunity. Had the writing been marginally less focused on deception here, this could be a genuinely heartwarming moment. Instead, by the time the play tries to use it for denouement, the interaction has somewhat lost its power and become just another half-truth.

While the ending doesn’t seem quite tied-up enough to justify the increasingly convoluted plotting, and while the production remains, on the whole, quite offense-less, this was, overall, a refreshingly funny, well-acted and well-done take on the farce, that just about manages to pull off the gender-swap without taking advantage of it for cheap jokes.

Tag Archives: The Mill at Sonning

High Society

★★★★

The Mill at Sonning

HIGH SOCIETY at The Mill at Sonning

★★★★

“An elegant production. A swell party indeed. What a swellegant, elegant party this is!”

“the gorgeous splashes of colour from Natalie Titchener’s sumptuous costumes wash across the stage in time to Jaye Elster’s dazzling choreography”

HIGH SOCIETY at The Mill at Sonning

Reviewed on 9th December 2023