BWW Reviews: BABES IN ARMS, Union Theatre, April 24 2012

There’s plenty of Scooby Dooish candoishness in Babes in Arms (at the Union Theatre until 12 May), as the bright young things just darned well show a bit of that ol’ American get up and go and stage the revue, doncha’ know?

Okay, there’s one or two good lines in George Oppenheimer’s revised 1950s book of the classic musical (mostly at the expense of gentlemen born south of the Mason-Dixon Line) but, fortunately, we’re not really here for the story, we’re here for the songs – and what songs! One might expect Richard Rodgers’ tunes to be timeless – music has an elemental quality after all – but Lorenz Hart’s lyrics lift the pedestrian language of the spoken parts to a wit and wisdom of Shakespearean intensity and economy. Though light and fluffy on the surface, many of the songs catch the mood of melancholy that runs through Lorenz Hart’s work, lending a note of realism to the precarious life chosen by those who work in the theatre (and, arguably these days, any profession).

Glib book, great tunes and glorious lyrics maybe, but musical theatre needs great voices too. The Union Theatre’s inevitably intimate staging gives nowhere to hide a shaky vocalist, but it also enhances our pleasure when a song is really nailed. And Catriona MacKenzie really nails “My Funny Valentine” at the centre of a winning performance full of vim and topped off with a lovely ad-lib which was at clever as it was unexpected – so good, it should be included every night! Ben Redfearn and Anna McGarahan bounce off each other all evening, topping and tailing the show with two “I wish I were in love again”s brimming with charm and the kind of love –hate that always resolves itself as love in musicals. Jenny Perry gets “The Lady is a Tramp” - about as famous a song as there is in musical theatre - and performs her routine well. And it’s hardly her fault that one can’t quite shake Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald from one’s mind – okay, Lady Gaga for you youngsters.

If Babes in Arms is hardly challenging entertainment, then so what? It’s entertainment, and darned good entertainment too, with performances to admire, tunes that will live forever and a sly cleverness in the lyrics that mark the work of a genius whose own life never ran as smoothly as the words he so skilfully put to music.      

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