Thoroughly Modern Millie

Every iconic film is fair game for stage musicalisation. Some are great hits, some are flops, and others, like Thoroughly Modern Millie, sit somewhere in the middle.

Bright and lively, Gosford Musical Society’s Thoroughly Modern Millie features charming performances, together with snappy, appropriate musical comedy choreography (Kate Pareaux). Attractive costumes evoke the show’s 1920s era (Doreen Cox), and cut-out set pieces effectively establish the period and locations, the art-deco pieces which open the show being a special highlight (Daryl Kirkness).

Jade McCudden’s sparkling, perky Millie, Sally Loughnan’sdelightfully eccentric, yet knowing, Muzzy van Hossmere and Rose Cooper’s comically malevolent Mrs Meers are delightful performances at the heart of the production.

Neil Kelleher hits the mark as Trevor Grayden, Millie’s Boss, with an appropriately starched, credulous, wholesome portrayal. While Anthea Conyngham’s sweet Miss Dorothy doesn’t, perhaps, go the whole way to naturally capturing the wide-eyed innocence of the role, it is an assured performance.

Their operetta send-up, Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life, misses marginally. To be truly hilarious and in the spirit, their belief needs to be absolute.

As Jimmy Smith, Daniel Ceh gives a more than promising performance in his first leading role.

The two stereotypical Chinese characters the show calls for are played competently by Mitchell Vangelatos and Gareth Isaac, though they’re pretty thankless roles, except for the laughs they get for the surtext titling of Chinese passages, particularly during their Chinese version of Mammy with Mrs Meers.

Mammy and Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life are two of three interpolations, very much in keeping with musicals of the 20s, where existing songs were incorporated. In addition to the Jolson (in Chinese) and operetta, we get Gilbert and Sullivan (minus Gilbert).

Kate Pareaux’s choreography, appropriate and generally very tight, is a highlight for me. The ensemble performs it with infectious enthusiasm and energy.

The design, consisting of set pieces, provided attractive cut-out suggestions of locations and era. Some pieces, however, tended to be set unnecessarily far upstage.

Elevator scenes, a real gem of a visual gag in the movie, miss the mark in this staging, where the elevator simply moves to the rear of the stage. I can’t help feeling that clever use of multi-media or a natty idea to move the surrounds is a necessity in the stage version.

Gosford Musical plays in a venue which most Sydney community theatre companies can only dream of – the intimate, raked Laycock Street Theatre, with its great stage facilities and lavish foyer, which the company was instrumental in building. It makes the audience experience at Gosford very pleasurable. The orchestral sound, though, from a covered pit, seemed somewhat remote.

My disappointment, in the end, lies with the show itself, rather than any minor criticisms of a relatively pleasing production.

I’ll fly in the face of the positive New York opinion, where Thoroughly Modern Millie ran 2 years on Broadway, winning 6 Tony Awards including Best Musical, and go with the West End verdict, where it didn’t really catch on. For mine, the stage musical version tends to overburden (with a largely forgettable full score) what worked beautifully as a flimsy confection of a film, featuring a few songs. The changed pastiche ending, too, leaves me cold.

An enjoyable production, but the stage adaptation doesn’t live up to the film original.

Neil Litchfield