Front Row Review: Sweet Charity - 20/06/2010

After a sell-out run at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Sweet Charity moves to the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Carrie Martindale went along for the ride.

When it opened in 1966, Sweet Charity was to become the ‘hottest’ ticket on Broadway, running for 600 performances. Now, playing in one of London’s oldest playhouses, the opulent surroundings of the Theatre Royal Haymarket seemed apt for the spectacle that unfolded before my eyes.

A national newspaper recently described Sweet Charity as ‘sizzling’. And sizzling it is. From the beginning, Sweet Charity goes against any preconceptions one might have - it is anything but sweet or charitable, the story based on Fellini’s The Nights of Cabiria, a dark version of Cinderella. As I waited in the sold-out stalls, the mood was pensive; a solitary street light illuminated the stage and a looming New York skyline lay beyond.

The story follows the misadventures of love encountered by the gullible and guileless Charity Hope Valentine, a woman who always gives her heart and her dreams to the wrong man. The setting is New York in the swinging 1960s. Charity is played flawlessly by Tamsin Outhwaite, whose permanent grin throughout her performance - something I initially thought would begin to grate - simply endears her to the audience.

The show’s opening is impressive. The audience are surprised from the wings as a collection of scantily-clad broads bicker and pout their way onto the front of the stage through a haze of red light, where they continue to preen and whisper come-ons to the fortunate male members of the front row. We are in the seedy Fan- Dango Ballroom where Charity works as a dance-hall hostess.

With the exception of our heroine, Charity, all of the cast play a kaleidoscope of different characters. Mark Umbers plays Charity’s extremely different, but equally unsuitable love-interests, in a series of performances which almost steal the show. From the rakish Charlie, to the unbelievably likeable egotist Vittorio Vidal, the nerdy hypochondriac Oscar Lindquist, and an anonymous GI. He has a very strong operatic voice, which I appreciated particularly in Too Many Tomorrows as Vittorio Vidal. In fact, he is so superb that it is testament to Tamsin Outhwaite’s excellent performance that she shines, where other actresses would simply have faded.

Image credit: Catherine Ashmore