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The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!)

4 Stars

Emma John

Sound Theatre Fringe

If you think Kander and Ebb sounds like a German department store, look away now. But if, like me. you snigger at the idea of an Andrew Lloyd Webber theme tune called 'I've Heard This Song Before', get to this show. You'll have a riot.

This small-scaled revue came over from Off-Broadway, where it scored a runaway hit with the musical theatre cognoscenti (or geeks) who lapped up its witty, skitty parodies. Four expertly versatile actors repeat the same scenario (our heroine. June, can't pay her rent) in various musical theatre styles.

It's a 'Whose Line Is It Anyway' exercise with no Clive Anderson to press the buzzer. But who cares when the pastiches are this good. In Rodgers and Hammerstein land June's lover Willy-a buoyant Ian McLarnon-is rhapsodising about his corn, chipmunks are reading the bible and Mother Abby is on hand to offer incomprehensible advice about rainbows. Eric Rockwell's uncanny music and Joanne Bogart's teasing lyrics really hit their straps in the Sondheim section-'A Little Complex' where June now lives in an apartment building called The Woods with a psychotic landlord who wants to kill her and turn her into art. "I am not a loon,' he croons. "No one is a looon...'

It wouldn't work half as well without its outrageously energetic cast of West End pros. Joanna Ampil, more used to power-ballading in 'Miss Saigon', proves adept at comedy too. Susannah Fellows applies so sure a touch to her multifarious roles that you can't wait for her to be back on stage. They're no slackers either, subjecting themselves to some taut choreography as they Fosse dance to a mock Kander and Ebb number, a determined Geoffrey Abbott sweating under his string vest. Zo, life's a disappointment? Forget it. Watch this instead.