BWW Reviews: KEELER, Charing Cross Theatre, November 6 2013

Towards the end of Keeler (at the Charing Cross Theatre until 14th December) old newspaper photos flash on the big screen behind the stage and it all becomes clear. Despite everyone saying so, Christine Keeler was not beautiful in a conventional sense, but she had a look that combined the sex kittenish innocence of Brigitte Bardot with the come-hither knowingness of Zsa Zsa Gabor. It was a look potent enough to ensnare rich and powerful men - and to bring down a government.

Of course, it says something about the play if the most convincing minute of its 120 is the one filled with fifty-year- old headlines. Though Gill Adams' script is endorsed by Ms Keeler, it captures none of the seismic shifts in social attitudes the scandal came to represent, nor - and this is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the show - the tragedy of its principal characters. Because we never get to know Stephen Ward. Christine Keeler nor Jack Profumo, we don't care about their falls from grace - and we should, because each was the victim of British hypocrisy, as much as their own naivety.

Sarah Armstrong may look like Christine Keeler, but has none of her "look" - she is, if harsh truth be told, too old to play the part of a teenage girl. Ms Armstrong doesn't convince with her dialogue either, but her lines just don't sound like anything anyone would say. Paul Nicholas, doubling up as Stephen Ward and director, intones like a Radio Four announcer, but does capture some of Ward's seedy asexual voyeurism as he provides girls for men who should know better. Michael Good does what he can with Profumo, but the Minister of War is only on stage for sufficient time to have a quickie with Chrissie, dissemble in Parliament and then resign in disgrace.

It's left to the supporting cast to bring life to a play that needs it. Stacy Leeson sparkles as MAndy Rice-Davies, unrepentant and swift to give as good as she gets - "He would, wouldn't he" is delivered perfectly. Marcus Adolphy is menacing as Jamican gangster Lucky Gordon, whose rape of Christine is buried by Stephen Ward's brutal putdown - "No bruises." That the single really evil character is the only one with any charisma is a curious result of casting, directing and writing.

If the script condemns "Keeler" to punch below its weight, it is still fascinating to see just how little was required to topple a governmenT. Ward was a starstruck voyeur who had a happy (if, on this showing, inexplicable) knack of mixing easily in low and high society. He was probably out to make a little money from selling information to the Russian and the British Intelligence, motivated a little by a well-founded concern about America's gung-ho approach to nuclear sabre-rattling. Jack Profumo had a middle-aged crisis which he tried to cover up in public - his extraordinary dedication to good works after the scandal showed him to be a good man. And Christine? She wasn't much more than a proto-WAG - the kind of girl one sees in the press on the arm of a different footballer each week. She was manipulated and exploited, but she was, more often than not, happy to move in the circles in which she found herself. Her notoriety is undeserved.

Whether Andrew Lloyd-Webber's upcoming version of the same events will be more satisfying remains to be seen - but I suspect that it will be.

Photos by: Elliott Franks/Irina Chira

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