Reviews

With the voices of Gertrude Lawrence and Coward himself infusing the action, director Jan Mahoney pays tribute to one of the twentieth century’s theatrical ‘greats”. Playwright, composer, librettist, musician, satirist, actor, director – Sir Noël Coward made his special mark on stage and screen in England and America. His plays live on as classic vignettes of the wealthy social ‘set’ of London in the 1920s and 30s.

Eighteen years later and still a riot, the annual Wharf Revue has now moved across the road to the big theatre, the Roz Packer. 

And while the founding writers and creators, Jonathan Biggins and Drew Forsythe, have gained two new cast members and a new musical director, their show has lost a touch of its old home’s intimacy.  

Rachael Beck is a great musical and dancing addition; so not surprisingly music director Andrew Worboys has upped the number and pizzazz of the songs.

Take a room full of testosterone. Pressurise it with heat, sweat, humidity, life and death decisions, a fan that doesn’t work and just the one face towel that pretty much all the men use to mop their brows. Throw in racism and rationality, and you have the makings of a tense 90 minutes. 12 Angry Men is the prototypical jury drama, written in 1954 by Reginald Rose and reworked dozens of times thereafter.

Darlington Theatre Players opened this locally written world premiere on Remembrance Day, a fitting choice for this show, which is set around the Conscription Referendum of 1916.