Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

17th March 2014 

A couple of weeks ago, I was in London for a business meeting. It was a Monday. Once it was over, I could have caught the train home in time for tea and gone to bed nice and early. That would have been sensible. Instead, I went to the theatre.

I popped down to The Savoy and bought a ticket for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Without breaking the bank, I managed to nab a seat at the end of the front row. Not bad.

On the way home, I received notification that Samantha Bond had retweeted my comment about her gorgeous dresses (eek!) 

 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels had its official opening last Wednesday. It’s a musical, based upon the 1988 comedy film starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin. The show’s directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, with a book by Jeffrey Lane and music and lyrics by David Yazbek. It tells the tale of Lawrence Jamieson, a debonair conman on the French Riviera, who – in cahoots with the Chief of Police – charms cash out of wealthy women. Along comes a young and coarse upstart, Freddy Benson, to stamp on his turf. They engage in friendly rivalry, competing with one another to scam an innocent American heiress, Christine Colgate. It’s slapstick stuff, with both men striving to outsmart each other in increasingly extreme ways.  

Scoundrels certainly has a very effective marketer and a hefty marketing budget! If you go to London at the moment, there are posters advertising the show everywhere – on buses, on the tube, on the top of bridges! I wasn’t seduced by a banner ad, however. Rather, I was drawn to the show for two reasons: Robert Lindsay, the leading man, and his co-star, Samantha Bond. I’ve seen both these actors on stage before with varying success. Lindsay, I saw in Onassis in 2010. It was the week before Christmas: the theatre was half empty; I had a heavy cold; it wasn’t great. Miss Bond, I saw in Arcadia in 2009, which was more enjoyable, although it was one of the hottest days of the year, we were up in the gallery, and the West End is not known for air conditioning! Both, however, are tremendous actors and I was curious to see them strut their musical stuff.

The show was ridiculous, hilarious, uproarious fun. It’s definitely not groundbreaking in the manner of West Side Story or Sweeney Todd. The plot is simple and undemanding. If you want the heart-wrenching emotion of Les Mis, this is not the show for you. The songs don’t stick in the memory like the Lloyd Webber or Hammerstein greats, but the lyrics are sharp and they’re a nice nod to musical heritage. There’s a particularly jolly hoe-down akin to Oklahoma! The singing and dancing are sensational. Katherine Kingsley as Christine and Lizzy Connolly as Jolene Oakes have stunning voices. The sets are beautiful. The costumes – particularly Miss Bond’s sparkling dresses – are divine. Everyone looks as if they’re enjoying themselves. What’s not to like?

Lindsay as Jamieson and Rufus Hound as Benson make a terrific and highly-energetic double act. There’s some very adept, Astaire-like, catching of boaters. There’s also a particularly funny moment when Benson, trying to win the love of Christine, pretends to be an incapacitated American officer, suffering from no feeling below his waist. Jamieson, acting the part of a doctor working on his cure, begins to hit his thighs with increasing relish, seeking to provoke a reaction. The sight of Rufus Hound’s face turning redder and redder as he attempts to remain impassive is priceless.

Samantha Bond, in her first musical appearance, also gives a touching performance as Muriel, a rich but lonely Englishwoman. It’s rather amazing that she’s never been in a musical before, especially since her real life husband, Alexander Hanson, is such a veteran! Muriel falls in love with the Chief of Police, Andre (John Marquez). He, too, is lonely and they begin a romance. They long for continued companionship, but are frightened to express this to one another. Bond, in particular, beautifully captures this hesitancy: hope mingled with fear of being hurt. It’s a gentle side-story, tempering the noisy comedy elsewhere.

Even if you haven’t seen the film (and I hadn’t), there’s a twist at the end which you’ll probably see from a mile off. But, somehow, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t take away from a thoroughly joyous romp.

There were two especially nice things about seeing Scoundrels at The Savoy. Firstly, the theatre itself. It was gutted by a devastating fire in 1990 and has been lovingly restored to the Art Deco glamour of its 1929 redesign by Frank Tugwell and Basil Ionides. The result is absolutely beautiful. The seats – alternating pink, red, orange, and yellow – reminded me of boiled sweets. This milieu is perfectly suited to this musical. Secondly, the audience. The house was packed and it was wonderful to see so many young people, probably drawn in by Rufus Hound and perhaps even Robert Lindsay, surely a recognisable face due to My Family. For once in the West End, I did not stand out as one of the youngest people in the house.

I got back to Oxford at 1am, not really the best idea when working at 8.30am the following day. Yet, such a well-staged and unpretentious show – indeed such a happy show – was well worth seeing. A fabulous tonic to start to the working week!