(Rated 5/5 )
'Curtains' is a wonderfully sparkling fun murder mystery musical comedy, which incorporates elements of vaudeville, musical drama, comedy, farce, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, spoof, play within a play and even a play within that! There's excellent song compositions with such poignant lyrics and catchy musical tunes as well as emotive subtext giving us powerful psychodrama between its characters in addition to skilful comedic turns.
The show opens in 1959 Boston, Massachusetts on opening night of the play within a play etc, as the cast perform a wild west number for their production of 'Robbin Hood of the Old West' and their star Jessica Cranshaw (puts you in mind of Jessica Fletcher of 'Murder She Wrote') is murdered at curtain call. Enter Lieutenant Frank Cioffi - played for this set of performances by stand-up comic Jason Manford. His character is a fan of musical theatre and as he investigates what then become a series of murders - do they have a serial killer on their hands?! - gradually develops into the role of director and even producer. Will he raise the show's success and maybe even find love? We have a whodunnit as good as the best crime writers may produce with a detective getting to play a variety of the greatest fictional sleuths (hints of Poirot, Morse, David Tennant in 'Broadchurch' et al) and sing and dance onto the bargain. His dream come true!
The original concept is by Peter Stone with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb - the latter pairing that gave us 'Chicago' and 'Cabaret'. Sadly during the writing of this show, Ebb passed away, leaving Kander to finish and write for them both. My personal favourite number is 'I Miss the Music' as performed here by Andy Coxon as Aaron, in which he sings about struggling to produce music without his writing partner Georgia - played by Carley Stenson - Oh, how life imitates art!
We are given the classic set of characters you'd find on stage - divas, handsome leading men, rival performers craving the starring role, backstage support and stabbers!, those engaged in love trysts, a tough apparently unempathic producer Carmen Bernstein (Rebecca Lock) and her daughter the ingenue - Emma Caffrey as Bambi Bernet. Carmen comes across as fiercely critical of Bambi but what is really going on behind the scenes? Well actually so much! This piece works on so many levels and has far greater depth than might immediately meet the eye or even heart!
Highly entertaining as well as highly emotive with superb performances by all.
Curtains – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2019
