A new addition to the range of musicals on offer for London theatre breaks The Donmar Warehouse has announced full casting for its British premiere production of The 25th Annual County Spelling Bee, beginning performances February 11th 2011, with an official opening on February 21st, for a run through until April 2nd 2011. “If you win the Spelling Bee, one’s life improves from A to Z.” Music & Lyrics by William Finn. Book by Rachel Sheinkin 11 February – 2 April 2011 Only those blessed with an extraordinary ability and love of language qualify for the Putnam County Spelling Bee. But there can only be one winner and with a place in the national final at stake, emotions run high, hopes are quashed and dreams are broken. Dust off your dictionary and prepare yourselves for the spelling challenge of a lifetime in William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s hilarious Tony Award-winning musical. This riotous musical comedy is guaranteed to have you cachinnating (use it in a sentence, request a definition?). The Spelling Bee cast will feature Chris Carswell (as Leaf Coneybear/Carl Dad), David Flynn (William Barfee), Hayley Gallivan (Olive Ostrovksy), Harry Hepple (Chip Tolentino/Jesus), Katherine Kingsley (Rona Lisa Perretti/Olive’s Mum), Maria Lawson (Marcy Park), Ako Mitchell (Mitch Mahoney/Dan Dad/Olive’s Dad), Steve Pemberton (Vice Principal Douglas Panch) and Iris Roberts (Logainne Schwatzandgrubenniere), under the direction of Jamie Lloyd. Read more: http://theatrebreaks.co/wiki/The_25th_Annual_Putnam_County_Spelling_Bee
“Like Grease and Legally Blonde, it has a vaguely academic context.”
This article titled “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee – review” was written by Michael Billington, for The Guardian on Tuesday 22nd February 2011 02.09 UTC Given the Donmar’s exemplary musical track record, it is a bit of a shock to find them importing this flimsy, vacuous diversion. Like Grease and Legally Blonde, it has a vaguely academic context. But William Finn’s music and lyrics and Rachel Sheinkin’s book have little of the brio of those shows and seem unsure whether they are satirising or celebrating a peculiarly American institution. The pretence is that we are in a high school gym watching a competitive spelling bee. To add verisimilitude we are asked to stand and recite the pledge of allegiance and four audience members are invited to join the contest. It says much for the bravery of my colleague, the Evening Standard’s Henry Hitchings, that he agreed to participate and he acquitted himself with dignity and style. But much of the spontaneity and fun goes out of the proceedings when the four volunteers are eliminated and all we are left with is a remorseless whittling away of the survivors: it’s a bit like The Weakest Link without the laughs. I presume the intention is to show that spelling bees are a way for American kids to shed their hangups by exhibiting their verbal prowess. So we have the unloved fat boy, the disconsolate over-achiever, the poor kid pining for her mum on a spiritual trek to India and the guy with uncontrollable lusts who at one point sings “my unfortunate protuberance seems to have its own exuberance”. But the highly forgettable songs seem to be imposed on the action rather than arising organically from it and many of the jokes are just as arbitrary. In a heavily American show, that assumes we know the difference between the Red Sox and the Yankees, it seems implausible for a high school kid to tell us that “Nick Clegg is after the alternative vote – but what about the straights?” The best one can say is that the cast in Jamie Lloyd’s production works with unremitting energy. Katherine Kingsley, who made a big impression in Aspects of Love, lends the contest’s co-host a honey blonde vivacity and Steve Pemberton as her colleague has the fake omniscience of the smug quizmaster. And, among the contestants, David Fynn as the bumptious know-all, Hayley Gallivan as a lovelorn loser and Harry Hepple as the guy with the erectile issues make their mark. But it’s hard to warm to a show that, for all its would-be scholasticism, embodies the progressive infantilising of the American musical. And, when Christ appears in a vision to one of the struggling contestants and declares “this isn’t the kind of thing I care about”, he speaks for a good many of us.
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