Allegro - Southwark Playhouse

If you might go and see other shows there the Southwark Pay as You Go Scheme would get you tickets for £12 each - southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/your-visit/payg/

Agreed. The studio recording is fantastic .totally recomend

That's odd, as I've booked loads of PAYG tix this year and each time have had to ring up, and have been told that it's a deliberate measure to stop people booking more than the maximum 2 tix at once. If they have relented, or tweaked the system to accommodate this, it'd be nice if they informed PAYG subscribers!

I saw this on Tuesday evening and thoroughly enjoyed it. Quentin Letts was in too, presumably reviewing. The theatre was woefully empty - at best 50% full, which is a shame. It appeared a few people left at the interval. However, I thought it was fantastic and the orchestra was on top form. Glad to see it finally get its London outing.

TM, I was there as well, only in the other theatre - shame the intervals are staggered. Re The Gentleman Is a Dope, the actress is a veteran of Mrs. Henderson, as you know, so you didn't see anything you hadn't seen before.

See, I knew that posting profile pics would reap benefits

Well it's a charming but rather outdated show. I found it difficult to sympathise with the message of going home and thought the representation of the city and the new job to be too cartoonishly evil. The music is catchy and tuneful, but 'The Gentleman is a Dope' sounds like nothing else in the score and manages to wake the audience up a bit. It almost reminds me more of the kind of music Rodgers wrote when he worked with Hart, not Hammerstein (and the Rodgers that is more to my personal taste). It helps that the character that sings that song is the only principal female character that isn't a stereotype. For all its faults though, it's a great production. Inventive staging, exciting choreography and a powerhouse cast with brilliant voices. The main actor was mostly effective although was a bit OTT at times for my taste. Everyone else was pretty faultless.

3*

First Post. So pleased to have found this forum


Delighted that the chance to see this came up but almost lost the will to live by the time he got to college. Thankfully second act much better.


Can’t help but think Sondheim learnt the most from this and as for an earlier poster, Merrily came to mind.

Finally did no one else wonder who R&H thought their audience would be? It’s not the stay at home on the farm types it’s the badass city dwellers who want fun and not a lecture!

Pleased to have the opportunity to be there and great Kudos to everyone involved with this production, but it’s a rarity for a reason. The plot stinks and time has not been kind.


Ps Is it to much to point out it was Hammerstein who loved life back on the farm and Rogers who kept a flat in the city for his philandering?  Was the former trying to get a message over to the latter?

I suppose every show reflects the time in which it was written as much as the time in which it's set, but Allegro seems an extreme example of that. I think it can be seen as something of an allegory - Joe's journey from small town to big city standing in for the emergence of America as the richest and most powerful country in the world following WWII and having a lot of doubts about it. Isolationism is no longer possible but what will a leadership role in world affairs bring with it - what values will be lost?

I'm not saying that was in Oscar Hammerstein's mind when he wrote it - for him it probably reflected his own personal battle with the travails of success - but I believe it's there in the narrative and perhaps accounts for some of the (to us) naïve and downright corny storytelling. It's trying too hard to be an everyman tale, to make a larger point, and the result is to make it too simple.

That said, I went with it all the way and found myself totally caught up in Joe's over-familiar story. I loved the score - with the exception of The Gentleman is a Dope I'd not heard any of it before - which, from the very first chords sounded exactly like a Rodgers and Hammerstein show. If the show had been a success and the songs had been heard more I don't doubt that a few of them would have emerged as standards.

But most of all I loved Thom Southerland's production, inventive and illuminating and making the best possible case for the piece. He's such a phenom in the fringe musical world I keep wondering when he's going to get his chance at a big West End production. Of course, if and when that happens he'll have to deal with his own "travails of success", bringing the whole thing full circle.

I thought the cast was exceptional, top to bottom. I loved Gary Tushaw's Joe - I thought he was perfect - and Leah West and Katie Bernstein and, especially, Joe's parents, Steve Watts and Julia J. Nagle. Ms Nagle has the show's 11 o'clock number, "Come Home" and she nails it.

It was fascinating to see an R & H show one actually didn't know - and emerge wanting to see it and hear it again. Congrats to all involved.