Sketchy musical fails to impress

“OF THEE I SING”, Lowry Lyric, by Paul Genty

GEORGE and Ira Gershwin, a couple of Mark Brothers writers, political satire on the US presidential election in election week, a great opera company and fine singers: what’s not to like about this Opera North production of a Pulitzer prize-winning 1931 musical comedy?

Sadly quite a lot: but mainly that it doesn’t nearly live up to expectations the above warrant.

The Pulitzer was not for Gershwin’s music but for Kaufman and Ruskin’s satirically silly book (“we appeal to your hearts and not your intelligence”); and the cast of characters rarely rises above the level of cartoon ciphers.

And while the Gershwin score is a dazzling mixture of everything from Gilbert and Sullivan to American marches and jazz (even a little of his “American in Paris” main theme for every appearance of the French ambassador), it manages only two melodies with general appreciation today, “Love is Sweeping the Country” and the title song — and the latter is rarely heard.

This Thirties musical was an advance on Gershwin’s frothy comedies with immortal melodies from the Twenties, but while the humour hasn’t dated, the staging has - especially in this curiously cheap and cheerful-looking set by Tim Hopkins that rolls around a big Lowry stage awash with dark curtains to draw-in the space.

Caroline Gawn’s production has a similarly disconnected look — not entirely her fault, for while the prize-winning book is full of witty comments and one-liners, it also remains sketchy and rather cold-hearted.

But ultimately the problem is that of a fine opera company attempting an out and out musical comedy: the performers generally have neither the approach nor techniques to do musical roles as well as musicals stars (G and S veteran and fine comic actor/singer Richard Suart, as the French emissary, thus walks away with every scene he is in).

The singers, naturally, perform without microphones, so some of the jokes remain indistinct.

And though William Dazeley as the candidate and Bibi Heal as his wife — a homely sort he chooses over the vamp his campaign bosses wanted to pair him up with, and whose rejection causes all kinds of problems — are fine singers and more than passable comedy performers, they lose ultimate honours to Suart and Steven Beard, who as vice-president Alexander Throttlebottom is the humble star of a running joke about being unknown even to his running mate. And let’s face it, can you tell me the name of Obama’s VP without looking it up?