Chess bored: but at least the singers were good

CHESS, Lowry Lyric, Salford
I CAN’T help thinking that for all the skill, ingenuity and musical smartness of musical director Sarah Travis and her various directors, this production of the ABBA-Tim Rice musical is a stretch too far.

Travis has made her name with a set of brilliant, small-scale shows in which the actors also formed the orchestra — most notably the award-winning Sondheim “Sweeney Todd”, and most recently “Spend Spend Spend”, with director/choreographer Craig Revel Horwood.

But this show sees she and Horwood clearly with a lot more money to spend, and the result is a full-scale musical, achieved in that same small-scale way and yet still, well, large-scale.

So the performers who play the on-stage cellos, trumpets and so on don’t actually have a lot of acting to do: they mainly add weight of numbers to the stage — and there is still an offstage band, which makes the effort seem a little pointless.

Even so the rest of the cash has gone on a sparkling look with lots of lights, a huge lattice set and a screen that doubles as a projection screen for on-stage video and other eyecatchers. The costumes are pretty good, too, as is the musicianship on display.

But honestly, Chess? What might have seemed a good idea when Tim Rice proposed it to Benny and Bjorn all those years ago — when East-West politics could still be portrayed in a gamesmanship metaphor — stopped being a good idea very quickly, in fact as soon as the ABBA boys decided to stretch themselves musically and Tim Rice thought he could offer an insight into modern politics.

The resulting musical is almost irredeemably tedious: well over two hours of posturing, histrionics, misplaced pomposity and an operatic musical style for people who don’t like opera. It is notable that the only two pop songs of the evening — “One Night in Bangkok” and “I Know Him So Well” — are almost completely misplaced and an entirely welcome respite.

For all this disappointment it has to be said that the performances and overall standard of this boring tosh are extremely high.

The production has remarkable singers in James Fox (US champ Trumper), Shona White as his secretary Florence and especially Daniel Koek as Russian champ Anatoly, a man with an amazing voice.

If only the show wasn’t as boring as, you know, watching a game of chess.