Company, Derby Playhouse

The Derby Playhouse, a venue two hours outside of London, is the perfect auditorium to stage Sondheim's classic musical Company. At around six hundred seats it is intimate without being claustrophobic, perfect acoustically and beautifully designed to accommodate small-scale shows like this. After the success of their Sweeney Todd last year, they've brought Sondheim back to the regions once more.

Bobby is drowning his sorrows. He's just turned thirty-five and his five sets of married friends are starting to put on the pressure; he should find a wife and settle down. But his friends have problems of their own; be it issues with alcohol and food, marital doubts, the struggle to commit or fear of facing the future. With three women in his life, Bobby is seemingly facing an early mid-life crisis, at least in the eyes of his friends. The star of Company is the material itself, and for this reason it quite rightly sits among the greatest American musicals ever written. That a play so seemingly rooted in time and place can be revived thirty years later and still contain gems like 'I remember when everybody used to smoke' to great amusement is a testament to a writing partnership that is unlikely to ever be matched.

Company has become musical theatre's answer to A Midsummer Night's Dream; each director must find a different way of approaching it for fear of 'playing it safe'. What Karen Louise Hebden achieves best of all is seamlessly bringing it into the present day; the material is so fresh it could have been written yesterday, and her direction aids this comfortably with modern dress and stylish furnishings. But what Hebden has really brought to her production is the creation of invasion - that his friends are invading his life. A pivotal demonstration of this comes when he wakes up in bed surrounded by female friends - he can never seem to escape them. Thus one of the final lines - "maybe we should leave him alone" - becomes a poignant moment in an otherwise relatively pedestrian production.

The direction seems to lose much of the wittiness Furth and Sondheim have written. I didn't think Company was particularly challenging in finding naturally humourous moments, but this production makes the script do all the work, when it should be the actors effortlessly surfacing the comic moments. Good material speaks for itself, but so does weak direction, and at times the scenes are underdeveloped and ideas never fully imagined.

Glenn Carter is a puzzling choice for Bobby. Though one could interpret Carter's empty characteristics as a clue towards solving Bobby's unintelligible problems, I think this is unlikely to have been a chosen objective. He has a nice voice, but seems too metrosexual for his more conservative friends, at least this is how the casting interprets this. With her rapid-fire rendition of I'm Not Getting Married Today, Eliza Lumley as Amy is a show-stealer – to the point where applause interrupted her mid-song; a rare occurrence. Her scene is easily the show's highlight. As the older woman Joanne, Liz Robertson brings maturity and conviction to her Ladies Who Lunch, a moment of quiet reflection amid Bobby's hectic life.

Steven Richardson's design serves the multi-location script well, with various domestic situations sliding in and out of New York skyline window frames. The sound design is amongst the best I've heard for a musical – every word is crystal clear – but the show's occasional snatch of choreography weakens the quieter environment Hebden creates elsewhere. Altogether, despite its flaws, Derby's Company is a relatively enjoyable night out – certainly material this strong has to be seen – especially in the midst of such an intimate auditorium.

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