'Finian's Rainbow' at the Union Theatre

This evening we went to see 'Finian's Rainbow' at the bijou Union Theatre in Southwark. I've never seen it on stage - it hasn't been performed professionally in London for over 50 years and I missed the Broadway revival a few years back by a week or so. I have, of course, seen the film with Petula Clark, Fred Astaire and Tommy Steele. I saw it in the early '70s and it stayed with me. I wonder why it isn't a daytime staple? It should be, it's a lovely film.

It's the tale of Finian McLonegan who takes his granddaughter Sharon to America to find his fortune in Rainbow Valley, close to Fort Knox. His secret comes out quite early, that's he's found the crock of gold belonging to leprechaun Og and he's going to plant it in the good soil of America to grow more gold. Unfortunately it's loss is turning Og mortal but it still has it's power to grant three wishes. Sharon finds the man of her dreams and they settle in Rainbow Valley while her grandfather heads off to bring hope and joy to other places... taking the crock with him, obv.

Okay, so the story isn't the deepest but it's lovely and magical with some great songs to take it along at a nice pace. I'm delighted to have finally seen it performed.

And on to this production. Um. It doesn't seem to be doing terribly well with less than half of the seats taken for tonight's performance (maybe Tuesday is a quite night?). It almost seemed like there were more people on stage than in the audience (there isn't actually a stage as such). Despite that, the cast gave us their all tonight, smiling away, singing and dancing, thrusting their energy and enthusiasm at us. I did lots of loud clapping to make up for the lack of audience.

James Horne played Finian and Christina Bennington was Sharon with Joseph Peters as the love interest, Woody. I quite liked Raymond Walsh as the energetic Og who was all over the place. There were 23 cast members plus a small band of three people so that was a lot of people on stage. The majority were young and just starting out on their careers and I congratulate them all on their professionalism in the face of poor ticket sales. Well done people! Keep looking to the rainbow and follow the fellow who follows a dream... I will.

If you have any magic in your soul then you'll want to go and see this. Book tickets now!

'The World Goes Round' at Union Theatre

Last Sunday we went to the matinee of 'The World Goes 'Round' at the Union Theatre in Southwark, a review of the songs of Kander & Ebb.

You might not know the names but you know their work - they wrote 'Cabaret' and 'Chicago' (and many more shows, such as 'Curtains' and 'The Scottsboro Boys', both of which I've seen). This review is something they put together in the early '90s to showcase their songs in another way. As far as I know, this is the first time the show has been put on in London since the '90s so it was worth seeing.

The Union Theatre is a small venue and I've been there before. It's another one of those little venues that seems to glory in not having seat numbers and investing in odd habits. Would it really detract from your artistic integrity to be a trifle more professional? Still, it puts on little played shows so that's a good thing.

Five mature singers and five young dancers present the show. There are no themes to try to pull the songs together, just a series of good songs sung by good singers. The show pulls together a range of songs from Kander & Ebb's career up to the early '90s so doesn't show their full repertoire, but it's a pretty damn good set of songs.

My favourites were 'My Colouring Book' and 'Maybe This Time' sung by Susan Fay and 'Class' sung by Susan and Emma Francis. Another favourite was about the end of the world with 'Coffee In A Cardboard Cup' sung by the whole ensemble.  The final song, acting as an encore, is 'New York, New York' in which the initial verses are all sung in different languages.

It's a great show (despite the theatre and having iron girders obscuring the action) so, if you've got the time, go and see it. It's only on for another few days so see it.