Since writing about Cleveland Street I’ve had two comments from people who saw the show and broadly endorse what I said, and one saying they didn’t see what the fuss was about, and writers were too-touchy creatures. More disturbingly, one of the cast has emailed me the reviews of the show which show a broad appreciation, with reservations, of a show which is “only a bit of fun”. The most disturbing thing is how much attention it had, which only goes to show the power of a TV name and having enough money to employ a professional PR company.
It also raises the disturbing possibility that both critics and audiences have lost any sense of what a musical might be, and therefore any touchstone by which to judge. Have Sondheim, Flaherty and Ahrens laboured vain?! That would be pretty much the death knell of the form, and leave it as much of a minority taste as the 12-tone Second Viennese School of composers. I really don’t want to think about that.
BTW, for completeness, and to show my beastliness to the full, I remembered something from the original “Cleveland” review about the horrible stage cockerney, to-be-sure Irishry and ooh-la-la Frenchery of a kind I thought had died in Hollywood in the 1950s. Again I think this is is the fault of the script rather than the hapless thesps.
