The Sheffield Telegraph
Published Date: 14 March 2008
By Bernard Lee
CROFT House do a sterling job on Frank Wildhorn's
best musical to date, the 1998 revival version. It's not perfect,
but the virtues outstrip the failings. It could be argued the
musical is not perfect. Some may find Wildhorn's music a little
old-fashioned in places, but it can be appealing and you can
hum most of the tunes.
The music certainly has a derivative feel at
times, though the style Wildhorn chooses to illustrate a musical
number works exceptionally well, and impressively in the situation
it is performed in. Croft handed the part of Marguerite St Just
(Lady Blakeney) to the one person in Sheffield who could probably
do it justice vocally and dramatically, Sarah Buckley, and she
doesn't disappoint.
She even maintains a semblance and suggestion
of a French accent, just about avoiding 'Allo 'Allo-lingo, whether
speaking or singing, as does Richard Carlin as a brutish, fine-voiced
Chauvelin. Their scenes together are dramatically convincing.
Damien Ross is a more than passable as a foppish
Sir Percy Blakeney and his earnest alter-ego, 'that demmed elusive
Pimpernel'. His singing voice is a little anonymous but never
really wanting.
He also engages with Richard Carlin in one
of best fencing scenes probably ever seen on an amateur stage.
There is no doubting the professionalism instilled
in the large cast by director Jeremy Tustin but far too often,
from the very start and Marguerite's dancing girls, it looks
a little stiff – caused in part perhaps by limited stage
space with Mam'zelle Guillotine been a permanent fixture at
the back of the stage, though not always seen?
One or two male wigs look as if they have escaped
from Davy Crockett's cabin, the Blakeney English garden backdrop
descending in France, the horn player who never gets the Pimpernel
'call' quite right, are niggling things which can be rectified.
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