Jack The Ripper (1983)
Reviewed by Keith Lancing for The Croydon Advertiser
Jack takes on style
Berlin of the 1930s “Cabaret” style and “Sweeney Todd” as traditional melodrama are well known to us, but “Jack The Ripper” as Music Hall?
That’s the unlikely show presented by Theatre Workshop Coulsdon (last performances this weekend).
Raucous numbers luridly depicting the lives and loves of the unsavoury, deprived roughs and prostitutes of late Victorian London are justaposed with gruesome murders and poignant sob stories.
The fusion of styles is sometimes clumsy. For example the jolly song and dance number about cutting up pretty girls followed by a genuine throat-cutting is more like a scene from “The Producers” mis-conceived production “Springtime for Hitler” than an effective theatrical device.
Other scenes, like the musical line-up of suspects under the gavel of judge-cum-Music Hall Chairman, and the policemen as plainclothes whores are excellent theatre.
Director Chris Argles successfully achieves the general atmosphere inside the Steam Packet Music Hall in the East End.
I think a more abrasive playing style, and more audience participation in the songs, instead of the rather tame and inconggruous tapes, would have helped even more.
Certainly the streetwalker / soubrettes needed to be raunchier. They were quite a delicate bunch, really, so many of the double entendres became single, and their terrifying histories became hard to believe.
Lesley Argles as Marie Kelly fell into this trap, marring an otherwise accomplished performance, though she did tend to let her cockney accent lapse when using her pleasant singing voice in several numbers.
Best performance came from Richard Lloys as gang leader Daniel Mendoza. He was a bull of a villain in the Bill Sykes mould.
Chairman Tim Young had some fine moments – particularly in his moving description of victim Polly’s history, and as the Music Hall Judge.
Chris Woolgar gave a vigorous account of warped Bible-thumper Druitt, at whom the accusing finger eventually points.
Cast Details:
Marie Kelly/Music Hall Subrette
Lesley Argles
Lizzie Stride/Queen Victoria
Christine Cooper
Polly Anne Nichols
Claudia Dean
Annie Chapman
Sally Valentine
Frances Coles
Maureen White
Catherine Eddowes
Wendy Cole
Martha Tabram
Zakka
Liza Pearl
Lisa Blain
Big Sal
Jan Woolgar
Daniel Mendoza
Richard Lloyd
Dinky Nine-Eights
Nigel Sorensen
Bluenose Stack
Mark Outhwaite
Slop Wallace
Martin Cole
Chairman/Sir Charles Warren
Tim Young
Montague Druitt (alias Toynbee Hall)
Chris Woolgar
Police Sergeant/Lord Overcoat
Tim Warner
Policeman/Charlie Small
Mark Hobbs
Policemen
John Herbert
Policemen
Peter Jacob
Freddie Priest
Shaun Gardner
Paperboys
Glenn Valentine
Paperboys
Geoff Whitfield
Technical Crew Details:
Director
Chris Argles
Lighting
John Wooden
Lighting
Jeremy Sims
Set design and construction
Richard Lloyd
Set design and construction
Nigel Sorensen
Box Office
Martin Cole
Band Details:
Pianist
Carol Baker