Forgotten Musicals: 'Miss Nightingale' (2011)
Book, Lyrics and Music by Matthew Bugg
History:
Miss Nightingale started life as a small-scale chamber musical at The Lowry Studio and King's Head Theatre in 2011. It was written and directed by acclaimed theatre composer Matthew Bugg, whose work had been heard in theatres across the UK and in the West End for shows including "King Lear", "Three Men in a Boat" and "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes". The first full-scale version of the show was staged in 2013 in a co-production with the New Wolsey Theatre, Ispwich, in association with The Lowry, Salford Quays. Since then it has toured the UK, becoming one of The Guardian’s 'Top 50 Shows of 2016' and being recently voted into BritishTheatre.com’s 'Top 100 Greatest Musicals of All Time'
Plot:
London, 1942. A smoky, underground cabaret club opens in the heart
of the war-torn city. A saucy new singer, Miss Nightingale is thrust into the spotlight.
Meanwhile, two men struggle to bring their love out of the shadows. A dangerous world where aristocrats slum it with black market spivs,
songwriters take to the streets, and showgirls fight to change the
world. When secrets are revealed and lies exposed, the only resistance
is to stand up and be counted.
In a Nutshell:
If you could die tomorrow, wouldn’t you live today as if it were your last ?
Production:
I saw the show at 'The Vaults', a subterranean theatre under the railway at Waterloo. Also on on the same evening was their successful 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' immersive promenade show, for which the majority of patrons seemed to have attended. Finally we were gestured upstairs and for a brief moment believed that the show might be in the bar area, until someone had the sense to open a curtain leading to the auditorium, and we all shuffled in.
Having bought a programme (which for a few pounds extra could come with some rationed chocolate), I settled in for an evening described in a review that I had read as "Like Cabaret as written by Victoria Wood". I would concur with this, as Maggie Brown (Tamar Broadbent) was reinvented as the cabaret star, Miss Nightingale, singing bawdy songs (with more than a touch of double entendre). However, the emotional heart of the play was the love story between her pianist (Conor O'Kane) and their impressario (Nicholas Coutu-Langmead), in an era when homosexuality was illegal. The rumbling trains acted as the sound of distant bombs falling, adding to the 1940s atmosphere. Credit must also be given to the show's creator, Matthew Bugg, playing Maggie's brother Harry, who like the others played instruments in the songs, who managed to have played six different instruments by the end. Both bawdily funny and touchingly sweet.
Having bought a programme (which for a few pounds extra could come with some rationed chocolate), I settled in for an evening described in a review that I had read as "Like Cabaret as written by Victoria Wood". I would concur with this, as Maggie Brown (Tamar Broadbent) was reinvented as the cabaret star, Miss Nightingale, singing bawdy songs (with more than a touch of double entendre). However, the emotional heart of the play was the love story between her pianist (Conor O'Kane) and their impressario (Nicholas Coutu-Langmead), in an era when homosexuality was illegal. The rumbling trains acted as the sound of distant bombs falling, adding to the 1940s atmosphere. Credit must also be given to the show's creator, Matthew Bugg, playing Maggie's brother Harry, who like the others played instruments in the songs, who managed to have played six different instruments by the end. Both bawdily funny and touchingly sweet.
'Miss Nightingale' ran at 'The Vaults' in London from 30th March 2017 to 20th May 2017.
Signature Song:
No struggling with emotion this time. If I say 'The Sausage Song' (with its refrain 'You've got to get your sausage where you can') just edges out 'The Pussy Song', you can get an idea of Miss Nightingale's singing style.
Links:
"Miss Nightingale" returns to London, for its first West End run, for a limited time from 21st March 2018, at The Theatre at the Hippodrome Casino, starring Mannish from 'Frisky & Mannish' (Matthew Floyd Jones).
ReplyDeleteSee http://missnightingale.co.uk/ for more detail.