The Life by Cy Coleman - Southwark Playhouse

Saw the second preview, Saturday night, and loved it! A cheesetastic celebration of seventies dress-up and attitude, with a few disconcerting moments of genuine drama!

Some spoilers follow. . .

This is far too exuberant to be taken seriously. While dramatic threads are seeded from the moment we meet the characters, with David Albury's money-wasting, cocaine-snorting, loser-pimp Fleetwood seeding most of them, it's impossible to take any of this seriously. Cy Coleman's rousing sing-em-louder melodies, coupled with lurid seventies costume stylings and chorus-line type dancing announce this show as a fun camp exercise in let-your-hair-down-and-dress-up-and-cheer party time!

This is the most sheer fun at the Southwark since Xanadu closed, a kind of reverse Porgy and Bess, in that Gershwin even made "Summertime" sound miserable, whereas Coleman makes "The Oldest Profession" sound like party-time, for Sharon D. Clarke's aging lady of the night, Sonja. And nobody is as ready to party as Sharon D. Clarke, who, equipped with full on Pam Grier comebacks and sass, melts into an astonishing full-voiced, meticulously calibrated rendition of "The Oldest Profession" that brings the house down. Even if it's just for this one song, no musical lover should miss her magnificent voice filling this small Southwark Space with this moment of glory.

Real drama comes from Cornel S John, who in his own way, is just as impressive as Clarke in his role as primo pimp, Memphis. He has a slow motion way of moving his immensely imposing frame, especially in the way he touches his face with his hands, which, when coupled with his slow deep drawl of a voice screams, watch out! When he sings "Don't Take Much," it's an awesome combination of heartfelt blues and impending threat. He also forms a neat double-act with his number one moll, Charlottle Reavey's imposing April.

When the threat drops in Act 2, it is nonetheless jarring, despite having been foreshadowed, in much the way it's jarring when you watch any postmodern cheesefest, like "Bad Girls" or "Prisoner Cell Block H" and suddenly something happens that feels a bit too real.

The cast are all singing and dancing wonders. I loved the sensitivity of David Albury's Fleetwood, T'Shan Williams carries the sympathies of the audience effortlessly with her affecting performance, Jalisa Andrew's sparky Chi Chi benefits from her ability to project her voice at just the right moment, and Jo Servi's Lacy is so natural.

Joanna Woodward, who recently graduated to play Carole King for a short while in "Beautiful," here returns to her wheelhouse, which is playing the borderline of innocence and experience, someone who can endure hard knocks and come up smiling. With burlesque in her background, it is she who is called on to play one of the most exploitational moments in the show (which moment might cause feminists, without a sense of humour, not to want to book), yet she projects such joie de vivre, and has such a graceful and sensitive way of transitioning from speaking to singing, that I was bowled over by her performance in this.

So if you book this, know it's all just seventies dress-up, politically incorrect to a degree that will offend the po-faced, really just camp provocative fun, rated 18, blessed by Cy Coleman's glorious tunes, and you will have one of your best nights of the year!

4 and a half stars.