October 06 - The Northern Theatre Company - Thoroughly Modern Millie (1/2) By Dirk Snatch

(1/2), (2/2)

It was a Monday and after a cruel weekend of amphetamine abuse and barely legal sex, all I wanted to do was to slip into a Night Nurse induced coma and dream of Monica Bellucci's backside. However my rat bastard agent informed me that unless I produced a theatre review within the next 24 hours, he was going to stop paying my liquor bills and feed me to the poor and so it was, with a heavy heart and hammered head I shuffled on down to the show. I'm a big fan of musicals, which I suppose makes me some kind of latent homosexual but I'd never seen Thoroughly Modern Millie before and all I knew was that a few years ago, the woman who cheated on Les Dennis tackled the starring role in the West End revival.

As far as I'm concerned every song and dance production should star Howard Keel and as he was dead I didn't really hold out much hope. Keel was a giant of a leading man who knew how to deliver a tune, and from time to time I've been known to belt out Bless Your Beautiful Hide, Higher than a Hawk and the majestic Black Hills of Dakota during periods of particularly vicious drinking. Alas, old Howard had gone to the big stage in the sky back in 2004 so unless they dug up his bones this was going to be a long night in a cold town so I hit the red wine at the bar like an alcoholic French man just back from sea.

Forty five minutes into the show I was starting to regret that I hadn't brought a gun loaded with two bullets, one for the director and one myself.

Set in 1922, the story revolves around the adventures of Millie Dillmount, who escapes to New York City from Kansas determined to marry a wealthy man-about-town. Shedding her country girl image for the modern look of a 'flapper', she takes a room at the Priscilla Hotel for Women and gets a job as a stenographer at the Sincere Trust Insurance Company. In a short time, she finds herself involved with Jimmy Smith, an apparently ne'er-do-well paper clip salesman, Miss Dorothy Brown, a genteel aspiring actress who never seems to have spare change, Trevor Graydon, her no-nonsense boss, and Muzzy van Hossmere, a madcap heiress with a zest for the high life.

I took into account this was the opening night of an amateur production but Act One was like Battle of the Somme only slightly more bloody.

The leading lady Lucy Dell is a beautiful slip of a girl, and it if hadn't been for her excellent performance from curtain up to curtain fall, I could have sworn that the Chuckle Brothers had wrestled the reigns from the directors and decided to put on a pre-pantomime spoof. The sets wobbled, the story and acting was stale and Kaysie Healey who played Dorothy was barely audible due to some technical difficulties with her microphone, and it wasn't long before the audience was shuffling in their seats and talking in hushed whispers about how they could best crawl out of the auditorium without being seen.

Continued...Next Page (2/2)

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