![]() When young Princeton graduate Lieutenant Joe Cable is flown in on a dangerous reconnaissance mission, love and fear become entwined as the island’s battle for hearts and minds begins.Īlex Young – Ensign Nellie Forbush (some performances from 5 August, full-time from 23 August) The scheming sailor Luther Billis runs a makeshift laundry to earn a quick buck, but he’s no match for the quick-witted Polynesian Bloody Mary who’s intent on exploiting these foreigners. ![]() ![]() Nellie Forbush, a navy nurse from Arkansas, finds herself falling for the French plantation owner, Emile de Becque – a man with a mysterious past. On an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, US troops are kicking their heels amid the cacao groves while restlessly waiting for the war to reach them. The stage revolve has plenty of action, and with a song-and-dance score that has aged remarkably well, this delayed revival is well worth the wait. But this production is slick, and suitably timed to military precision, with scene changes sometimes already underway before a musical number (and therefore a scene) is over. Musicals move at a faster pace than they did in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s heyday (and I’m not just talking about Hamilton). Hints of British understatement occasionally permeate through, however: there is some water on stage during a shower scene, but nobody is as drenched as they would be had they actually had a shower. Beck and Ovenden, in the lead roles, are sublime in ‘Some Enchanted Evening’. It’s also one of those shows with memorable and popular tunes – it’s hardly by accident that despite never having seen a stage production of South Pacific before, I recognised the likes of ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Men Right Outta My Hair’ and ‘Younger Than Springtime’. It’s a long first act, with twenty musical numbers – the second act has eight – and I’m not sure everything in the show was entirely suitable for the young children in the audience: the show has young children in it, but they aren’t on stage when military men are attempting to satisfy their urges. Keir Charles’ Luther Billis has great stage presence, leading the other ‘Seabees’ (enlisted members of the United States Naval Construction Battalions – yes, I did look that up) in an enthusiastic rendering of ‘There is Nothin’ Like A Dame’. This is all very much Chichester Festival Theatre doing Rodgers and Hammerstein – it’s dazzling stuff, sung with verve and conviction, with choreography drilled to (just about) perfection. I shouldn’t really call them ensemble numbers, as there is, technically, no ensemble: each and every one of the thirty-three characters on stage is given a name. But elsewhere, there’s a lot of fun to be had, particularly in the larger ensemble numbers. Cable sings ‘You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught’, in which he makes it clear that the sort of “ hate and fear” of “ people whose skin is a different shade” is not something that anybody is born with. South Pacific, set in World War Two, in the, um, South Pacific islands, must have been somewhat progressive when it first hit Broadway in 1949, with a stance on racism that remains pertinent to this day. Julian Ovenden as Emile, Gina Beck as Nellie in Chichester Festival Theatre’s SOUTH PACIFIC – Photo Johan Persson. Lt Joseph Cable (Rob Houchen) also decides against going any further with local girl Liat (Sara Maehara), though he might have had a lucky escape of sorts, with Liat’s mother, known as Bloody Mary (Joanna Ampil) wanting to marry her daughter off for what she perceives to be maximum financial gain. Except that one might, but perhaps the explicitly stated reasons for not wanting to go any deeper with someone else would be rather more circumspect. These days one wouldn’t have the likes of Nellie Forbush (Gina Beck) bluntly telling, albeit apologetically, Emile de Bacque (Julian Ovenden) that any possible signs of a blossoming relationship have zero chance of coming to fruition on account of Emile being a widower to someone who wasn’t white.
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