This extraordinary production from Do the Write Thing is not a ‘musical’ in the usually accepted sense; ie huge spectacle, vast cast; elaborate sets, fancy costumes Lloyd Webber, etc.
No. Instead, this one is performed on a bare stage with a few chairs, and just five performers to tell the story of Nelly.
Onstage are two musicians, seated, with guitars – acoustic of course: this is a folk musical – sometimes singing, sometimes providing pleasant guitar accompaniment to a scene.
There are three actor/singers; one to play the eponymous Nelly, one to play other female roles, and one to play all the male roles.
But, behind them is a concatenation of multiple talents from all over the folk music and other creative worlds, songwriters, singers, playwrights, actors, historians have all contributed. This is a team effort.
It has acting narrative sung and spoken, and is slyly witty, outrageously comic, emotionally charged, poignant, angry and all feelings in between.
There are also deliciously wry anachronistic comments on life and politics today. Rather useful for them that they perform a piece set in the reign of a King Charles, and they are performing it now in the reign of another King Charles
Nelly, of course, is Nell Gwynne, who you probably only know for oranges, but as the piece shows, there is considerably more to her than that.
Emily Jane Brooks, who plays Nelly, takes on the role head-on; sometimes in song, across a whole range of vocal styles, and, despite a slight tendency at times to drop the volume level to a barely audible one more suited to film or TV acting than to theatre, conveys Nelly’s life from poverty and hardship to fame fortune and the love of a monarch with all her feistiness, her anger at society’s cruelties, and her ability to poke fun in the face of adversity.
All told, this is an ambitious and original take on the idea of a musical, about an ambitious and original woman from three centuries ago.
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Reviewer: John Christopher Wood | Star rating: ****