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Miss Nightingale
Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
***** I WASN’T expecting the adult level of the
entertainment. Having said that it was exquisitely performed – by one of
my favourites, Clara Darcy, a gift to the theatre, beautiful, a
beautiful voice and plays the trumpet! She plays Maggie Brown aka Miss Nightingale, nurse and newly discovered protégée of impresario and Sir Frank Worthington-Blythe (Nicholas Coutu-Langmead). He is engaged in a complex and, at the time,
criminal love triangle with her and song-writer George Nowodny (Conor
O’Kane) who is Polish, Jewish, gay, accomplished and honest, recently
fled from Berlin to London 1942, where our scene is set. His dream is to recreate in London the Berlin of
the Weimar Republic where artistic – and every other kind of freedom –
provided the backdrop to an enviable cultural nightlife that the Nazis
hated, stifled and blamed for all the ills that befell the Germany of
the 20s and 30s before they came to power. His dream becomes possible
with Sir Frank’s cash and cache. Maggie’s ex-lover and (married) manager Tom
Fuller (Christopher Hogben), spiv of the first order, discovers the
secret relationship of George and Frank which provides the underlying
menace of blackmail to the plot. The comic songs were brilliant but seemed to me
as English as ‘A for ‘Orses’; saucy, sexual and full of innuendo. They
were pure music hall; less ‘Cabaret’, and more ‘Carry On’. Matthew
Bugg, the writer, plays Harry, soldier and Maggie’s brother, very
occasional visitor to London who is ‘missing’, occasioning one of the
more lyrical, sensitive numbers that counterbalance the comedy. My favourite comic song was performed by Miss
Nightingale as Rosie the Riveter, about women’s place in the war effort
– ‘We can do it!’, followed by the closing three-way number ‘Someone
Else’s Song’. It is a cosy set, recreating a small theatre cum
Jazz Club, dark and smoky, that works hard. And speaking of working
hard, this small but perfectly formed company of six actor/musicians do
just that – I haven’t mentioned Tobias Oliver who contributes all the
other parts and plays double bass! Directed by Karen Simpson, it is a great show,
very enjoyable, with the Blitz, blackmail and blackouts at its heart,
and all the social chaos that attended wartime. To 13-02-16. Jane Howard 09-02-16
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