Review: The Commitments, New Wimbledon Theatre
Review: The Commitments, New Wimbledon Theatre
Jenny Booth reviews: “…the quality of the musical performances on and off stage created an alternative motive for the show, generating electric energy in the theatre that at the end brought most of the audience to their feet, singing, clapping and dancing.”
Dublin geography teacher Roddy Doyle’s 1987 novel The Commitments was a raw slice of life in the working class suburb of Barrytown, set in the hopeless days before Ireland transformed itself into a Celtic Tiger. His story tells how a motley group of young people allow obsessive Jimmy Rabbitte to talk them into joining a band, escaping their soul-destroying jobs or the poverty and mischief of life on the dole by learning to belt out soul classics from 1960s Motown and Memphis. The book dazzlingly used young people’s words and language to plunge the reader into the characters’ world, as the band improves, succeeds, fights among itself and suddenly falls apart. Since then the story has become a popular film, and in 2013 a stage show which played to sell-out audiences. Ten years on the stage show is back for another UK tour – but somehow the air just seems to have leaked out of the concept. What started out as a brilliant portrait of 1980s life has become just another jukebox musical, set in the dusty past when objectifying women was normal; a show where the songs seem more important than the characters, and which is increasingly an extended concert.
If you don’t mind that and can accept the show for what it is, then this is a successful and enjoyable production. It helps that unlike most other jukebox musicals the story is fictional, and doesn’t need to imitate or flatter a real band or a now elderly singer. Indeed Ian McIntosh takes full advantage of this freedom to create a satisfyingly horrible character as the band’s lead singer Deco, an arrogant gobshite whose toxic self-regard is one of the catalysts that breaks the band up. This massive confidence reminded me of his portrayal last year of Galileo Figaro in the Queen musical We Will Rock You – and as in that show, his voice is superb, a flexible and powerful instrument. Also excellent are the singing and dancing performances of Ciara Mackey, Eve Kitchingman and Sarah Gardiner as backing singers ‘the Commitettes’ – sadly, they hardly get any lines and their only other role is to sow jealousy and discord among the sex-starved male band members, hastening the band’s collapse. There is plenty of comedy: Nigel Pivaro as Jimmy’s Da steals all the scenes he is in, even when all he does is hunch behind a twitching newspaper, while Stuart Reid tells whopping fibs deadpan as the lothario middle-aged trumpeter Joey the Lips, and Ronnie Yorke anarchically threatens violence as the band’s skinhead bouncer Mickah.
The backstage band of Adam T Smith (keyboard), Phil Steventon (drums), Craig Oxley (guitar) and Rob Greenwood (trumpet), directed by George Francis, were outstanding. The script doesn’t really explain Jimmy’s idealistic passion for soul; his claim that it combines the rhythm of “the ride” with the “politics of the people” just sounded like a slogan, like his invitation at the start of concerts to “put your working-class hands together”. But the quality of the musical performances on and off stage created an alternative motive for the show, generating electric energy in the theatre that at the end brought most of the audience to their feet, singing, clapping and dancing.
New Wimbledon Theatre, until 14 January
Image: James Killeen and Ciara Mackey – Credit Ellie Kurttz
