THE
JERMYN STREET REVUE
Devised and Directed by Sheridan Morley
Choreography by Irving Davies and Joanne Kempton
Venue: Jermyn Street Theatre 2000
Devised and Directed by Sheridan Morley
Choreography by Irving Davies and Joanne Kempton
Venue: Jermyn Street Theatre 2000
Starring
JUDY CAMPBELL, JONATHAN CECIL, SOPHIE-LOUISE DANN,
PETER LAND, ISSY VAN RANDWYCK, THELMA RUBY,
FRANK THORNTON, and STEFAN BEDNARCZYK
PART ONE
1. Good Evening
(Stefan)
2, Tulip. From Amsterdam
(Issy)
3. I Gave it to Agnes
by Tom Lehrer (Company)
4. Boy Scouts
by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (Peter, Jonathan, Stelan)
5. Be Prepared
by Tom Lehrer (Peter, Jonathan, Stefan)
6. Jollyjaunts
by Arthur Macrae (Thelma, Sophie-Louise)
7. The Boy From
by Stephen Sondheim & Mary Rogers (Sophie-Louise)
8 Jermyn Street
(Jonathan)
9. Finchley Road
by Vivian Ellis (Thelma)
10. Train Robbery
by Peter Cook (Jonathan, Issy)
11. Penny in my Pocket
by Jerr Herman and Michael Stewart (Peter)
12. The Black and White
by Harold Pinter (Judy, Thelma)
13. Youth of the Heart
by Donald Swann & Sidney Carter (Stefan)
14. Yonder Window
by Alan Melville (Thelma, Peter)
15. Goldfish
by Nicholas Phipps (Issy)
16. Fatal Beating
by Richa'd Curtis & Ben Efon (Stefan, Frank)
17. Mrs Lowsborough-Goodby
by Cole Porter (Jonathan)
18. Butterling
by John Cleese (Frank, Peter)
19. A Moment with You
by Stephen Sondheim (Issy, Stefan)
20. World War Two
by Arthur Macrae, Herbert Farjeon, Noël Coward
& John Pritchett (Company)
21. A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square
by Eric Maschwittz and Manning Sherwin (Judy)
PART TWO
1. End of the News
by Noël Coward (Company)
2. Ravens
by Peter Cook & Dudley Moore (Jonathan, Issy)
3. Merry Litile Minuet by Sheldon Hamick (Stefan)
4. Doing a Revue
by Billy Barnes (Peter, Sophie-Louise)
5. Not an Asp
by Peter Cook (Issy, Frank)
6. Other People's Babies
by Vivian Ellis & A P Herbert (Thelma)
7. Trouble at the Works
by Harold Pinter(Stefan, Peter)
8. Haddock
by Richard Murdoch (Jonathan)
9. No Ball
by Alan Melville (Sophie-Louise, Thelma)
10. Miss Otis Regrets
by Cole Porter (Judy)
11. Small Time
by Vivian Ellis (Frank)
12. Critics
by Peter Cook (Sophie-Louise, Jonathan)
13.I Don't Remember Christmas
by Maltby and Shire (Peter)
14. Take a Pew
by Alan Bennett (Stefan)
15. Vatican Rag
by Tom Lehrer (Issy, Thelma, Sophie-Louise)
16. Last to Go
by Harold Pinter (Frank, Jonathan)
17. Crossword Puzzle
by Maltby & Shire (Sophie-Louise)
18. One Leg Too Few
by Peter Cook (Frank, Peter)
19. A Talent to Amuse
by Noël Coward (Judy)
20. The Party's Over
by Jule Styne (Issy)
21. The Party's Over Now
by Noël Coward (Company)
Review
Independent: Rachel Halliburton
The Jermyn Street Revue is like a
retirement home for jokes. "There goes that old Peter Cook and Dudley
Moore sketch on crutches," you find yourself thinking, or: "That Tom
Lehrer `Vatican Rag' was wonderful in its day, but the spark has gone
out of its eyes - must be the valium. And as for those Pinter sketches,
wouldn't it be better just to have one long pause?"
The evening reminds you of the literal meaning of nostalgia, from the Greek nostos, a return home, and algia, pain. Pain because, despite being much younger than those for whom these sketches were a genuine return to their roots, I really wanted the jokes to work, having sadly spent several evenings playing Tom Lehrer songs and listening to recordings of Cook and Moore.
How has director Sheridan Morley created this failure? He has assembled a fine comic cast, including Frank Are You Being Served Thornton, the fragile yet classy Judy Campbell, Stefan An Evening With Flanders and Swann Bednarczyk, and Sophie-Louise Dann from the recent Dick Barton successes.
But despite the high-quality components, you suspect that most of the laughs come from memories of the originals rather than the performances here. Jonathan Cecil brings a certain life to the mad Sir Arthur Streeb- Greebling (or is that Greeb-Streebling?) with his doomed mission to make ravens fly under water, but cannot capture the raving eccentricity of Cook's original. And the cast is just too "in your face" to make Lehrer's songs work, provoking only a fraction of the possible laughs.
The problem is that revue jokes need either to come from the mouth of a comic genius or to flirt with taboos of the time. Few of the sketches are clever enough to drag the audience back to the Fifties when innuendo was up everyone's alley, and you end up feeling mauled rather than provoked. You can see why the publicist seemed more interested in getting celebrities into the press night than critics: the harsh light of criticism brings out too many wrinkles - far better the soft focus of fond memory.
The evening reminds you of the literal meaning of nostalgia, from the Greek nostos, a return home, and algia, pain. Pain because, despite being much younger than those for whom these sketches were a genuine return to their roots, I really wanted the jokes to work, having sadly spent several evenings playing Tom Lehrer songs and listening to recordings of Cook and Moore.
How has director Sheridan Morley created this failure? He has assembled a fine comic cast, including Frank Are You Being Served Thornton, the fragile yet classy Judy Campbell, Stefan An Evening With Flanders and Swann Bednarczyk, and Sophie-Louise Dann from the recent Dick Barton successes.
But despite the high-quality components, you suspect that most of the laughs come from memories of the originals rather than the performances here. Jonathan Cecil brings a certain life to the mad Sir Arthur Streeb- Greebling (or is that Greeb-Streebling?) with his doomed mission to make ravens fly under water, but cannot capture the raving eccentricity of Cook's original. And the cast is just too "in your face" to make Lehrer's songs work, provoking only a fraction of the possible laughs.
The problem is that revue jokes need either to come from the mouth of a comic genius or to flirt with taboos of the time. Few of the sketches are clever enough to drag the audience back to the Fifties when innuendo was up everyone's alley, and you end up feeling mauled rather than provoked. You can see why the publicist seemed more interested in getting celebrities into the press night than critics: the harsh light of criticism brings out too many wrinkles - far better the soft focus of fond memory.
* * * * *
Your host comments: Well I enjoyed it.