Only Fools & Horses The Musical
★★★☆☆ Familiar
Playhouse: Tue 5 – Sat 9 Nov 2024
Review by Hugh Simpson
Only Fools & Horses The Musical, touring after its West End run, offers few surprises. Instead, it is a reassuring retread of a much-loved source, designed to please.
The long-running sitcom by John Sullivan, about ducking-and-diving Peckham market trader Derek Trotter and his family and friends, is revived here with a book by comedy legend Paul Whitehouse and Sullivan’s son Jim. Music and lyrics are by the pair as well as sundry other sources.
Richard J Hunt, Peter Watts, Sam Lupton and Georgina Hagen. Pic: Johan Persson.
The first thing that must be said is that few fans of the programme are likely to be disappointed, just as the whole thing may seem somewhat impenetrable to those few who have never seen it. The plot takes the familiar characters – Del Boy, Rodney, Grandad, Trigger, Boycie and so on – and uses events from across the programme’s run, telescoping various long-running plot strands into the two-hour running time.
Just about any joke, sight gag, French malapropism or piece of slang from the original that a devotee could wish for makes an appearance (or is at least referred to). More of these than you could imagine possible appear in the first twenty minutes, as if to placate the audience by their very familiarity.
comforting
The result is comforting, and certainly amusing, but undoubtedly episodic. There is no real narrative arc and very little flow, with some of the characters and their various preoccupations seemingly shoehorned in. Emotional engagement with these characters relies entirely on a pre-existing attachment to them. The tone also veers wildly from scene to scene, while some of the attitudes on display are much what you’d expect from an unreconstructed 80s sitcom.
Tom Major and Paul Whitehouse. Pic: Johan Persson
The decision to make it a musical, moreover, seems to have come out of a feeling that everything else has been turned into one, so there’s no reason why this shouldn’t. The familiar opening and closing TV themes, written by Sullivan senior, open the show, but the others are not always particularly memorable or very well integrated.
The late Chas Hodges, a much-underrated musician and writer, was involved in some of the songs, and there are also a couple of numbers he recorded as part of Chas & Dave. These are part of the occasional slides into jukebox musical territory, but at least Chas & Dave’s material is a natural fit for a London-set comedy musical; Simply Red and Bill Withers are rather less at home.
a Cockney knees-up
This points up the problems with the songs; Holding Back The Years is brilliantly sung by Gloria Acquaah-Harrison but has nothing whatsoever to do with the narrative. The most striking original song, meanwhile, a Cockney knees-up sung by Whitehouse and penned by him and Hodges, simply appears in the middle of a scene with no introduction or explanation whatsoever.
Gloria Acquaah-Harrison. Pic: Johan Persson.
There are parodies of well-known musicals with varying degrees of cleverness; some of the other numbers, such as a lame exploration of what Peckham will become in 2024, fall decidedly flat.
It’s all good fun, however, and excellently performed. Sam Lupton’s Del is a spirited comic performance, displaying great stage presence as well as a vocal similarity to David Jason that is quite astonishing.
The only drawback is that he is clearly doing a (remarkably good) impersonation of Jason rather than playing a character, Tom Major, in his first professional role, is also very much in the shadow of Nicholas Lyndhurst as Del’s much younger brother Rodney, but shows real comic potential.
uniformly very fine
Whitehouse, meanwhile, is a comic performer of the highest stature, and lights up the stage whenever he appears. The rest of the cast are uniformly very fine, with special mentions for Georgina Hagen as Del’s love interest Raquel, and Richard J Hunt’s none-more-musical-theatre dating agency proprietor.
Richard J Hunt and Sam Lupton. Pic: Johan Persson.
The huge cast – nearly 20 on stage during the ensemble numbers – is another way of giving the audience their money’s worth, even if some of them seem to get very little to do. Similarly, Alice Power’s huge set, with many moving parts, and Leo Flint’s video design, are thoroughly imposing, even at times a little distracting.
Caroline Jay Ranger’s direction and choreography are energetic and smooth out many of the bumps in the narrative. Stuart Morley’s musical direction and arrangements are top-notch (Morley also had a hand in a couple of the songs). The live band, under the direction of Rachel Murphy, are very good, and helped greatly by Rory Madden’s sharp sound.
Reliant Regal
The fact that probably the biggest audience reaction of the night comes when a Reliant Regal van appears on stage tells you a great deal. Nobody has come to see anything new, they have come to relive a favourite programme, and in this regard the production is a great success.
Running time: Two hours and 25 minutes (including one interval)
Playhouse, 18 – 22 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA
Tuesday 5 – Saturday 9 November 2024
Daily at 7.30 pm; Matinees Wed, Sat 2.30 pm
Details and tickets: Book here.
Touring until 2025 https://onlyfoolsonstage.com/
ENDS
