MUSICALS
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Renown Director Richard Green brings the Northern Theatre Company back to Edinburgh in this there 21^st anniversary of their first visit to the fringe with a re-imagining of Sweet Charity.

NTC is at its heart a theatre school aiming to develop talent from across the Yorkshire area whilst pushing the bounds of theatre itself. To a good degree turning Sweet Charity from its sugar sweet 60’s original and moving it to the seedy side of New York’s gay hustlers is a brave and contemporary move. That’s not to say there aren’t women involved in the production there are plenty of them but there relegated to boosting the ranks of the ensemble.

The company put up quite a fight during the performance I saw as they got an audience who were clearly slightly the worse for drink and viewed most of the gay exchanges as though they were something from carry on gaying much to my annoyance. The actual story of charity valentine is intact in the production except she is a he and he who is gay with style. It goes to show no matter your sexuality the need to be loved and accepted is present in us all. There were points in the production were serious drama was being played out on stage and for some reason the audience laughed their way through it which had the opposite effect the story is intended to have. I personally believe laughter covers embarrassment, and that became obvious throughout the show.

In terms of performance Ross Hugill as Oscar, Jamie Elliott as Vitoria the movie star and Jan Parker as Herman really stood out, all three of them gave performances worthy of the roles and showed no fear even when the technical team let them down with a complete power failure in the lighting system. It was also nice to see developing talent on stage especially Blaine Williams who has a talent for dance but needs to totally believe in himself and the character he is playing to completely sell the story to the audience.

My biggest praise goes to Max Gallaghar in the role of Charity; he completely excels with a tour de force of someone who has lost love, found it again only to discover it wasn’t meant to be. He took the direction of Richard Green to new heights and allowed the audience to flow with him. For me, he is also very cute and sexy and knows how to turn on the charm, especially in character.

The production is running to the end of the festival and I intend to see it again before then! Make sure you do too.