The Oxford Playhouse was seething with a capacity audience
before the start of Saturday's Musical Youth Company of Oxford production
of 'Me and My Girl'.
The story is of a cockney geezer (Bill Snibson) who inherits a large fortune
and the title of Lord Hareford. This cockney geezer has a cockney geezeress
(by the name of Sally Smith) who is soon shown to be a not entirely suitable
partner to the parvenu aristocrat. In a (reasonably) simple tale of people
versus the Establishment, Bill and Sally (after two and a half hours of
singing, dancing, slapstick and awful puns) reach a happy conclusion to
their troubles.
Apart from one badly-tuned minor solo at the beginning of the performance,
the singing was very polished. Notably, David Wilson as Herbert Parchester
pulled off the song 'The Family Solicitor' with great comedy and drew massive
appreciation from the audience. Louise Cobb as Sally Smith, with a fine
cockney accent, also stole the show with two very professionally sung solos
and her role in four other group songs. The dancing - apart from a few stray
beach-balls (it would take too long to explain!), was impeccable, and the
choreographer Joanne Cook worked wonders with the cast of sixty 12-18yr
olds.
Comic highlights included the wonderfully dead-pan Ashley Harvey as Charles
the Butler, Sam Hedges as the swiftly-ageing Sir Jasper Tring (an actor
with admirable command of a walking stick for a 17-year-old) and Alex Williams
(as Bill Snibson) whose innumerable antics added zest to a huge (and very
funny) part.
The direction (a debut by Dave Crewe) was innovative, and the music supplied
by the fourteen-piece band was toe-tapping stuff. The young and extremely
talented cast pulled off the 2½ hour performance to loads of curtain
calls and spontaneous applause. Don't miss next year's performance!
Joe Pike, 26.04.03
|