Review: CALL ME MADAM, Upstairs at the Gatehouse

We're in the fictional republic of Lichtenburg (which looks a lot like Bavaria) to which Mrs Sally Adams has been appointed the United States Ambassador. She has no knowledge of the Duchy, nor any intention of acquiring such, but she knows how to throw a party, charm a local politician and broker a romance. Absurd of course, but, with the Cold War just gearing up at the start of the 1950s, such things did happen and Irving Berlin - the Russian-born Jew who wrote "God Bless America" and "White Christmas" - was just the man to cast a gentle satirical eye on American foreign policy.

So the Hostess with the Mostes' is soon spreading the love (and US dollars) as she breezes through royal protocols, the express wishes of the Prime Minister and the deliberations of visiting members of Congress. If she screws up, nothing much matters, as there's always another champagne glass topped up close to hand. One really wonders how all this excess went down in Ration Book London's West End in 1952 - since it ran for nearly 500 performances, one can assume audiences simply lapped up the escapism. I certainly did in 2021!

Director, Mark Giesser, has pulled together a splendid cast who, almost but not quite, outshine Katie Helen Unwin's sensational costume design, worth the trip to Highgate on its own - in fact, the accessorising is worth the trip to Highgate on its own! If Rosemary Ashe appears often to be at the edge of her vocal range, she more than compensates for it with 1000 watts star quality as our Hostess, and plays beautifully with Richard Gibson (Cosmo Constantine) as romance blends with diplomacy to get things done in that Yankee "Can Do" way.

If the book (by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse) is paper-thin and preposterous, the kind that gives musicals a bad name amongst the genre's legion detractors, Berlin's songs dazzle with their lyrical wit and melodic hooks, especially when sung by the younger lovers, Beth Burrows (Princess Maria) and Daniel Breakwell (Kenneth Gibson). Burrows' voice has a touch of Julie Andrews about it, as delightful as ever, with Breakwell's light tenor a perfect foil. They get the comedy right too, and dodge the trap of falling into too saccharine a tryst.

Ludicrous it may be, but you leave the theatre with those tunes and voices running through your head and, as a difficult Autumn looms, exactly the right level of spring in your step. Pretty much as they did almost 70 long years ago I'd venture.

Call Me Madam continues Upstairs at the Gatehouse until 10 October.

Photo Flavia Fraser-Cannon

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