Carousel

Over seventy years ago Rodgers and Hammerstein broke the mold when they created Carousel with its wife-beating street-tough anti-hero, and it’s this dark spousal-abuse story thread that still gives the musical its contemporary currency. Their score, one of the finest in the classic musical theatre canon, registered time and time again in Ruth Gabriel’s production which wisely cast voices who could do justice to the songs.

Shane Webb followed his attention grabbing turn as Harold Hill in QMT’s The Music Man with another solid performance as fairground barker Billy Bigelow. His “Soliloquy”, the Mount Everest of male musical theatre solos, was impassioned, likewise “The Highest Judge of All”. Opposite him as Julie Jordan, Georgina Purdie gloriously sang “If I Loved You”, and gave a tender reading of one of the score’s forgotten gems, “What’s the Use of Wonderin’?”

Kate Morris was the perfect Nettie Fowler, warm, motherly and with a stunning mezzo-soprano that sang the heart out of the anthemic “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. As Carrie Pipperidge, Stacie Hobbs lovingly documented what her life would be like after marriage with “Mister Snow” and was amusingly parental in “When the Children Are Asleep”, whilst Pauwai Herewini’s Enoch Snow had self-righteous written all over him and sang like a dream.

Others to impress in a large cast were Ros Booth as Mrs Mullins, Chris Crane as Jigger Craigin, and Ella Macrokanis as the teenaged Louise Bigelow, who danced with feeling in the second-act ballet.

The chorus gave lusty life to the ensemble numbers “June is Bustin’ out all Over” and “A Real Nice Clambake”, against some excellent full-stage back video projection by Gerard Livsey which cleverly set the New England locations throughout.

Peter Pinne