ROLL UP, ROLL UP…
What sharper summer draw than “The Greatest Show On Earth” remembered within one of the smallest theatres? Jonathan O”Boyle’s production has the pretty little theatre decked out with bunting , retro posters and a circus-diner stall with hot dogs; worth getting to your seat early to see three of its performers swinging and twirling around on hoop and trapezes, costumed not in forbidding modern Lycra but white tights and – even for males – sweetly absurd modest bloomers with blue ribbon.
This odd musical by Cy Coleman, Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble is as much about spectacle as story, which can be quite frustrating: the retro romance of the circus usually tends to blot out the interest of Phineas T Barnum’s actual life in business, philanthropy and fierce political battles as well as showmanship. But then, he himself demurred at any “gilding” of seriousness saying “I am a showman by profession” and nothing more.
But curiously, I like this small-scale production better than any of the big theatrical extravaganzas : close up to them all you become more aware of the risks, business as well as physical, and of the hardscrabble nature of 19c touring showmanship . Matt Rawle is a very engaging Barnum, all flop-haired enthusiasm for the noble art of humbug and hauling in the punters.
And, indeed, getting rid of them when you need to: when the crowds in his big New York museum lingered too long, going several times round to see the White Whale , Elephant and assorted freaks, he brilliantly ordered a sign at the exit saying TO THE EGRESS, correctly assuming that thrill-seekers without dictionary-learnin’ would expect some giant eagle or ogress and leave. Thus demonstrating the great truth that you can use big words and panache to fool people into piutting your interest before their own. In fact, more than once I kept remembering the rise of Boris Johnson.
Barnum did less harm, though, and Rawle also has quite enough charm to convince the parents of the undersized Tom Thumb that making him a spectacle was displaying his abormality as “a gift from God”, and making you believe that his wife Charity (Monique Young, sweetly grave) would stay with him even after his fascination with the dazzling operatic soprano Jenny Lind (Penny Ashmore , glamourously operatic and melodious). O’Boyle has found some grand circus performers and with Oti Mabuse as choreographer moves a big cast joyfully around with extraordinary discipline in the small space, and some standout moments with “One Brick at a time’ and the big Follow the Band; there’s a good coup-de-theatre when the curtain and costumes turn monochrome because “I humbugged myself into being respectable” in politics. Altogether, satisfying: you leave after only two hours ten minutes with a spring in your step. What more to ask on a summer’s day? As usual, the Watermill proves worth any detour…
watermill.org.uk to 8 September
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