'City Of Angels' at The Guildhall

Friday evening saw a trip to the Guidlhall School of Music and Drama to see the students end of year graduation show, 'City Of Angels', a musical I've never heard of let alone seen. Angela had fond memories of it in the West End 15 years ago so Chris enticed me along to see it and good fun it was too.

It's set in 1950s Hollywood and is the story of the script-writer and scenes of the film he's writing based on his best-selling book, so one moment we see the private dick and his shady life being acted out and then flash forward to the writer talking about the scene or - more often - why he doesn't want to change the scene to suit the producer's whim. But then, at the end of the first act, the private detective the writer has invented comes to life and interacts with the writer in a great end-of-act number to ensure we all go back for the second act. That was a nice, unexpected twist.

It's a complicated show, with all the characters playing two roles, both in 'real life' and a similar character in the 'the book'. In that respect it's a great choice for an end of year show for the students since it allows them to show off their talents, but that also has its drawbacks. The student who played the writer's New York wife and Bobbi, the LA torch singer in 'the book', was much better as the wife, with songs more suited to her register and more like the word-filled banter of their conversations. It was the same for a couple of the other players.

Since it was the graduation production, then the lighting people, musicians, set designers, costumers, etc, all had their day as well, which was nice, but sometimes less is more. The musicians were excellent in big band swing mode. It was also nice to have photos of the players on display and their CVs available for potential casting agents (and me) to browse, making it a showcase event.

The thing that niggled a bit throughout was that the players were all of an age, noticeably so to me, and that lack of age in the show bothered me. The producer character clearly needed to be older than the bloke playing him - he didn't have the life experience to really bring the character to life - and the exaggerated hand gestures sometimes made me think of a child playing an adult. That's one of the subtle things you don't normally even think about in plays since there's almost invariably a mix of ages on the stage,

The star of the show for me was the young lady who played both Miss Oolie/Donna, a secretary in both 'the book' and 'real life' - played by Robin Steegman. She had a nice presence on stage and a great, versatile voice, her accent never wavered and was believable throughout. Well done that graduate!

All in all, it was great fun and a good night out.