Summerhall, Edinburgh
Three stars
If a fire alarm such as
the one that briefly delayed the first night of the ConFAB company's
new musical theatre collaboration with Dance HQ had affected the
show's subject, one suspects all involved would have merely shrugged
and got on with it. Because writer/director Rachel Jury and composer
Andrew Cruikshank's homage to London's legendary lesbian nightclub,
The Gateways, reveals a clandestine world where standing proud and
defiant was everything. In the 1950s, before gay bars and discos
broke cover, the King's Road basement club was the only fun in town,
be it for sharp-suited women, Chelsea bohemians or the assorted movie
stars who frequented its smoky interior.
Utilising a mammoth
twenty-five strong cast that includes singer/song-writer Lorna Brooks
and politician Rosie Kane, plus a four-piece band led by Cruikshank
on double bass, Jury and co have attempted to capture the speak-easy
hedonism of The Gates via a loose-knit narrative involving gangsters,
their molls and a love that finally does dare speak its name. The
central affair revolves around Jo, one of the club's regulars, and
Judy, the blonde appendage of gang leader Chelsea Charlie. With
dialogue kept to a minimum, their story is told primarily through a
series of rousing jazz-tinged numbers, with Seweryna Aga Dudzinkska
as Jo and Jennifer Dempster as Judy on particularly fine voice.
If Jo and Judy's doomed
love story is as old-fashioned as in any other period musical, The
Gates is also a show about a hidden community that existed
underground out of necessity. Glasgow audiences can check this out
for themselves when The Gates moves into the Classic Grand for its
Glasgay! run next week.
The Herald, October 18th 2013
ends
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