Based on the 1988 film starring a suave Michael Caine and crass Steve Martin, this 2004 musical was completely unknown to me until I secured tickets to the opening night at the Old Fire Station. I’ll be honest, although I remember the film fondly, if vaguely, I was more than intrigued to see how a musical of the classic ‘battle of the cons’ tale would go down.
The answer is – it goes down very well, thank you very much. A rip-roaring couple of hours of musical, farcical comedy that I found not only joyous in its toe-tapping, catchy numbers, but also very clever from a production perspective.This is a complex show to put on anywhere, I would imagine, but especially in a limited space such as the OFS; there are scene and costume changes aplenty, a live band tucked away to one side and an excellent use of lighting and props, not to mention a whole lot of complicated choreography.
The story, for those who are not familiar, is of two grifters of differing talents – the sophisticated English gent, Lawrence Jameson, living a very comfortable life (from the money he’s cleverly swindled from a variety of rich ladies) in the French Riviera. Then we have Freddy Benson, the vulgar American drifting around Europe getting the odd 20 bucks here and there from unsuspecting women falling for his woeful ‘my grandma needs a hip’ routine. Cue a rich heiress and a bet between the two on who can sting her for $50,000.
MAC Productions are the team behind this particular run of performances, a West Oxfordshire production company who specialise in ‘staging small cast musicals’ according to their promotional info, and having seen tonight’s performance I would be very much inclined to agree. Directed by Dave Crewe, the talented cast move through the complex scenes and musical numbers with huge energy and ease, clearly very well choreographed by Rachel Haydon and Nancy Mathy, and also clearly embracing the madness and hijinks of the show with relish.
It's difficult for me not to name every single cast member in this review, but I have to call out our three main players – Benjamin Ashton as Jameson with Andy Blagrove as Benson, his American protégé, and the rose between two thorns, Clare Dovey-Wilson, their clumsy, adorable mark. Dovey-Wilson’s display of naivety and kindness is the perfect foil to Blagrove’s brilliantly comedic portrayal of the ill-mannered Benson, but it is Ashton’s spectacular characterisation of Jameson in his many guises that stole the performance for me. With a Cowardesque flamboyance and charisma, and a perfect delivery of the razor-sharp wit of Jeffrey Lane’s text, he was eminently watchable.
There were a few technical hitches with headset microphones, but the performers were professional throughout and not deterred in the slightest.
I would recommend everyone get down to the Old Fire Station to see this joyful, old-fashioned musical.There is so much more heart to the musical compared to the film; it’s laugh-out-loud funny and neither dirty, nor rotten.