salad days

Salad Days

Malvern Theatres

***

Take a ride on a flying saucer in search of a magical piano called Minnie and never look back with Salad Days at Malvern Theatres this week.

The musical follows a couple of graduates trying to escape their parents’ demands to get work and get married and end up doing exactly that.

University friends Timothy, Mark Anderson, and Jane, Jessica Croll, lounge about in the park and in order to rebel they get married in the hope that they will one day grow to love each other. Timothy and Jane look after a magical piano that forces people to dance until they can hardly catch a breath with the help of Troppo, Callum Evans.

Evans puts on a fabulous performance as Troppo using his skills as an acrobatic gymnast to backflip his way across the floor and in Norman Wisdom style, gets his point across without a word spoken.

The somewhat dated notion that the men go out to work and the women just go dress shopping and dream of getting married doesn’t really empower the female of the species and since 1952 when this musical was written by Dorothy Reynolds and Julian Slade, not a lot seems to have been changed since then to bring it up to date with our modern society.

The choreography by Joanne McShane is slick however and my favourite bit was during ‘Oh Look at Me, I’m Dancing!’ where the music makes people want to dance and they can’t control their bodies. The jerky movements as dancers struggle to get a hold of themselves and the fluidity when they realise it’s better to just follow their dancing feet. Even PC Lancelot Boot, Nathan Elwick, can’t control his feet.

Wendi Peters as Lady Raeburn and Aunt Prue, is a true professional and takes centre stage with her charismatic edge, hitting every note dancing and singing.

The second act begins in a nightclub with Asphynxia, Maeve Byrne, putting on a show as Cleopatra, glugging from a champagne bottle, and certainly was a performance I won’t forget in a hurry. Then the second half repeats a lot from the first act with more ‘Oh Look at Me, I’m Dancing’ and ‘We Said We Wouldn’t Look Back’.

Salad Days doesn’t take itself too seriously and the nostalgic plot is simplistic if a little wilted round the edges and could do with a new dressing, but the on stage band bring everything together, Musical Director and Keys, Dan Smith, Bass, Andrew Richards and Drums, Joe Pickering.

Catch Salad Days at Malvern Theatres until Saturday 6 October. Tickets on sale at the Box Office 01684 892277 and online at http://www.malvern-theatres.co.uk

Emma Trimble

02-10-18 

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