by: Michael Coveney
Barnum’s the name and humbug’s the game. So announces Michael Crawford before laying claim to the title of sole remaining copper-bottomed musical theatre star of today.
The show that has proved a Broadway triumph for Jim Dale comes fully equipped with all the right prerequisites; feeble book by Mark Bramble. Indifferent lyrics by Michael Stewart and corny music by Cy Coleman. Anything more would have been disastrous. The whole thing works a treat and succeeds in blowing clean through any critical bogusness I am capable of mustering.
The Barnum technique is clearly exposed in his ability to transform the misfired exhibition of the oldest woman in the world, Joice Heth into a box office hit by labeling her, with scant regard for historical accuracy. “Washington’s nanny.” At this point the stage erupts in a company cakewalk you could only resist by filling your boots with lead and contemplating the Middle East crisis.
The construction of the American Museum (where Barnum could only get more people through the turnstiles by beguiling the clientele with a view of an “Egress”) is beautifully stages in “One Bring At a Time” with bricks flying all over the place and Mr. Crawford applying the cream with a tweak of subtle dexterity. Well into the show by now, the most spectacular thing he has done is to spin a coin.
Black and white – as we see in the second act imposition on respectable Bridgeport of a riot of streamers, balloons and circus acts – has no real place in the Barnum philosophy. Hokum and colour are all that count. When the Swedish Nightingale Jenny Lind, arrives in the delectable shape of Sarah Payne, she not only lives up to her title with a fine display of soprano coloratura, but also threatens Barnum’s marital stability.
The first act closes with Mr. Crawford delivering a storming number as he crosses the stage on a tightrope to the singing Swede’s private box. The book, magnificently lousy, now reveals its one real surprise quality narrative and theatrical restraint. After the interval, show-bursts forth again with an invasion of the auditorium by a marching band. The sudden decline into Barnum’s various disasters is just as suddenly halted by the lure of the Big Top. The Greatest Show on Earth is saved for the finale. Mr. Crawford shooting down from the auditoriums highest point on a long rope to join the jugglers, acrobats and sequined American totems.
Also worth watching out for are Jennie McGustle as a delightful stomper and Tom Thumb (Christopher dancing along in the shadow of Jumbo the Elephant with a pair of beefeaters on enormous stilts.)
The audience responded with the most spontaneous standing ovation I have see in a London theatre. Even allowing for First Night hysteria, you sensed that the home of variety, and Michael Crawford, deserved nothing less.