East end girls. Photo: Scott Rylander
Following on from its energetic revival of Godspell, the Union Theatre continues to mine the history of musical theatre with this lively take on the Lionel Bart/Frank Norman ‘play with music’ Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be.
I’m a big fan of the Union Theatre – if you’ve never been, you should make the effort to rectify that. It’s one of the gems of London’s theatre scene: a small and friendly venue that brings professionalism and warmth to all of its productions. This piece is no exception, though, for all its charms, it falls far short of the standard of Bart’s best known work, the timeless classic Oliver!
Set in 1959, as the austerity of the 50s tip into the swinging 60s, this is the story of cons, crooked coppers and cheeky Cockney ‘sparras’ scrabbling to make a living without ever having to do anything as outrageous as actual work. East End criminal and former ‘guv’nor of the manor’ Fred Cochran is fresh out of prison only to find the brothel/gambling den left in the charge of his long-suffering girlfriend and classic tart-with-a-heart Lil under threat from a bent copper and rival gangster, while London is moving into a brave new era that threatens to leave Fred, Lil and their ilk behind…
The universally strong cast play up the “loveable cock-er-ney” routine for all it’s worth, managing to steer just clear of Dick Van Dyke territory, though at times Neil McCaul’s grizzled Fred and Hannah-Jane Fox’s long-suffering Lil called to mind those other famous bickering EastEnders, Den and Ange. Hadrian Delacey’s Inspector Collins is suitably slimy, and Patsy Blower gets great comic mileage from blowsy Mo. Lil’s stable of whores are sexy and outspoken (Suzie Chard as Barbara is particularly good), but equally impressive in repose, lounging about the stage as they wait for their next trick with the careless physicality of women whose bodies are always for sale.
The intimacy of the venue serves the play well: you’re so close to the action you might be one of the punters, waiting for a girl to come free or the next card game to start. Oliver Townsend’s clever set and costumes smartly moves from 50s grey to 60s Technicolor, and director Phil Wilmott, aided by choreographer Nick Winston, keeps the whole thing pacey and tight.
So there’s a lot to like about Fings, but it’s a hard to feel any genuine affection for the production. The plot is pretty slight, the book is full of clichés, and, rousing title number aside, the songs are far less memorable than Bart’s other work. While it’s hardly alone in theatrical annals in being set in a seedy underworld of shady characters, there is something that feels particularly retrogressive in its cheery celebration of this lost world.
For all its “feel good” intentions, it is badly dated in its portrayal of comedy homosexuals (I really could have done without the screamingly camp interior designer) and positioning of ‘prostitute’ as an almost-aspirational career choice. This is a world where women might have the sass but the men have the say, and for all their down-to-earth cheeriness, the girls still end up on their knees giving blowjobs for money (an image which, to its credit, the show doesn’t shy away from). Call me a grumpy old feminist if you will, but that’s not something I want to get nostalgic about.
