Review: Eastbourne’s Guys and Dolls rocks the whole theatre!

Outside, the midsummer Eastbourne weather has been a bit mixed: but just pop inside the Royal Hippodrome Theatre, and the Rattonians will banish the blues with a production of Guys and Dolls that brings sunshine to the soul. It’s the best therapy you can get in a theatre seat.

The elderly memories of some in the audience can reel back, about four decades, to the company’s first staging of Guys and Dolls. The company’s artistic journey had begun in 1984, just across Seaside Road from the Hippodrome in the Tivoli – a former cinema, slightly ramshackle but taken over gleefully by Mark and Melanie Adams, with an assortment of friends, revelling in the project and the chance to be creative. Thirty-nine years later, and about thirty-nine steps across the road, they are still creating. Still setting professional standards – never be diverted by that unworthy “am-dram” phrase – and still delighting audiences. Guys and Dolls was Rattonians’ second ever production in 1985 (after The Boyfriend, since you ask), and then re-created at the Congress in 2001. And it remains a perennially great musical.

And for this Rattonians summer season we are in a grey, rather depressive New York, where crooks and shady gamblers ply their trade just out of sight of The Law. The show is full of super character parts, all filled by experienced performers. Nathan Morris plays his namesake, Nathan Detroit, with a lovely mix of hapless and likeable, as he chases his fortune at the next crap game. Chasing Nathan – apart from his creditors and Leigh Baker’s wearily dogged Police Lieutenant Brannigan – is Miss Adelaide. Fourteen years his fiancée and still waiting, Adelaide is a delicious comic role, and Emily Davis plays the inadequate heroine to absolute perfection.

If those two are an unlikely couple, then the pairing of doughty evangelist Sister Sarah and suave uber-confident sharpster Sky Masterson briefly seems totally absurd. Ah, but that’s the fun of it. Alex Adams’ Sky is just masterful: assured but not conceited, astute but never devious – and with a singing voice of liquid silver. Opposite Sky, Sarah can be a slightly plain-Jane role, but Star Bray brings it alive, creating an assertive and likeable character. Their Act One finale duet “Never Been in Love Before” is absolutely breathtaking.

Sustaining the pace of the ninety-minute first act is quite a challenge, as the plot – based on a 1930s Damon Runyon story – steadily develops. No criticism there of either performers or director, simply the structure of the show. The premise is daft: hardened gamblers sheepishly trooping to the Save a Soul Mission, to save it from closure. Not to mention elopement flights to Havana night clubs… But goodness, Act Two is worth the wait: the writing is tight, the plot rattles along, and the performances from every single member of this forty-strong company are fabulous.

Among the guys, Dan Garnham and Sam Hile form an assured pair of likeable rogues as Benny and Nicely-Nicely, while Peter Gurr reprises his role in the 2001 production with a knowingly roguish Harry the Horse.

Many Rattonians shows, of course, have graced the Congress Theatre, where both stage and auditorium create a vastness and even a slight separation from the audience. Not here: the Royal Hippodrome gives a kind of shared space and a shared, gleeful enjoyment. Michelle Eldridge, taking the baton for Rattonians for the first time, sets a brisk pace and draws beautiful light and shade from her fourteen-strong orchestra.

The big set pieces of Act Two absolutely dazzle. The Hot Box girls, assertively lavish and gloriously dressed (I didn’t say undressed) deliver a wonderful Take Back Your Mink. Sky and the Crap Shooters are snappy, sharp and syncopated with Luck Be A Lady. And then, as the story approaches its grand finale, we are presented with one of the craziest numbers in musical theatre: Rockin’ the Boat. It also happens to be perhaps the most challenging ensemble number to stage: and choreographer Debbie Adams doesn’t shrink from it. The entire forty-strong company, squeezed in like survivors in a lifeboat, swaying and leaping in exuberant syncopation: it is an absolute masterpiece of both direction and delivery, and it’s worth your ticket price alone.

Not that the whole production isn’t worth every penny. Community theatre can be a slightly condescending term: but with Rattonians, it doesn’t come close to reflecting the teamwork, the commitment, and fusing of so many talents. For every performer on stage, there is a set-builder or a costume-maker or a choreographer behind the scenes. Huge credit to Joshua Henry, Megan Stanfield, Nick Todd and the entire unseen crew. Which cast members did we almost overlook? Melanie Adams – once a dizzy Adelaide – is now a dignified General Matilda B Cartwright. Mark Adams – former card-sharper Sky – is here a wise paternalist Arvide. And the generational link is no accident. What Mark and Melanie began, Alex and Debbie – and the whole extended Rattonian family – are still renewing. Shoulders of giants…

Someone should write a book about the Rattonians’ journey: through decades of artistic vision, bold enterprise, and sheer insatiable love of what they do, these guys (and dolls) have lit up the town. Rockin’ the Boat? This production rocks the whole theatre!