Barnum will blow all those blues away!

REVIEW: Barnum the Circus Musical – Malvern Theatres (Tuesday, October 27 to Saturday, October 31). Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees 2.30pm.

Showtime! stars rating: * * * * *

JUST when you’ve had an overdose of doom and gloom courtesy of the politicians, along comes this corker of a show that blows the blues away.

Well, Cy Coleman’s cakewalking craziness of a score is technically ragtime, but let’s not quibble about the detail because every number – from the hysterically topical There is a Sucker Born Every Minute to The Prince of Humbug – hits hearts and feet in an instant.

For this rip-roaring, roustabout, rollicking, fun-filled feast for eyes and ears will most certainly take your mind off Field Marshal Streeting’s barking mad claim that we’ll all be fighting the dashed Ruskies within a thousand days.

Based on the book by Mark Bramble and with lyrics from the prolific pen of Michael Stewart, this rollercoaster of a production provides more than two hours of superb musicianship, dance routines and circus skills that will not only have you on the edge of your seats but also provoke an orgy of nail-biting right up to the armpits and maybe beyond.

Matt Rawle as the eccentric showman and impresario becomes a human dynamo as he pushes his performers to evermore daring feats at the expense of his marriage to Charity, played by understudy Emma Jane Morton, who serves up a stunning performance after stepping into the role at the last minute.

Charity clearly has her job cut out married to someone like the hyperactive P T Barnum, but her problems really start when Swedish titwillow Jenny Lind (Penny Ashmore) sashays across the stage after emerging from a cloud of dry ice and Viking vim that would have set even Thor’s ticker all-a-flutter.

Charity rightly guesses that her husband is being just that little bit too attentive as the impossibly Nordic Lind’s larynx starts to put all the glassware within a hundred yards in danger of shattering.

Then there’s Dominique Planter as Joice Heth, the world’s oldest woman (don’t think so, Mr B!). Right from the start, she reminds me of classic 1920s blues singer Ma Rainey as she hoots and hollers those slurred notes far and wide.

She serves up a wonderful contrast to Lind’s tremulous trilling that will almost splinter the rafters later in the show.

And what a performance from Ben Goffe as General Tom Thumb, truly a little big man who takes Bigger Isn’t Better by the scruff of its neck and wrings out every nuance while giving the number a whole lot of welly.

Mind you, it’s no wonder that this production of Barnum works so well, because the choreography is by former Strictly star Oti Mabuse. Her handiwork is clearly present from beginning to end, and it is this – combined with breath-taking acrobatics, music and acting – that makes this Watermill Theatre production of a classic show so irresistible. It’s not to be missed.