Salad Days

What an odd confection this is, a very British musical that comes more from the tradition of Gilbert and Sullivan than it does from anywhere else. The piece is lyric heavy and those lyrics certainly are there to progress the narrative – and the tunes are pretty, there’s a lightness to the whole and this company certainly deliver that with gusto and charm.

But what it lacks is a means of delivering the humour to a modern audience, where G&S is filled with satire that can be given a contemporary slant and bite, Salad Days is rather silly and lacks the bite that would add a modern poignancy. Perhaps in the delivery there needs to be a hint of tongue in cheek humour, pointing the audience to the archaic form of the whole.

All this said, for older audiences there is the pure delight of nostalgia, of a time gone by where a spot of silliness in post war Britain would not have gone amiss. The lyrics are beautifully crafted for sure and worth concentrating on and above all there is the joy of hearing and seeing Wendi Peters who can certainly deliver a song but also manages to wring out the comedy from her dual roles. It was good to hear the songs again but I left wishing that the director had found a way of delivering this with a twist that would make it work for a new audience.

Theatre Royal Brighton

5 May

Andrew Kay

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