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Company

Review

Rarely do you come out of a Stephen Sondheim musical humming the tunes.

There's been singing dancing and acting - but it doesn't add up to what most people think of as a musical, like, say, Oklahoma! or Guys and Dolls.

Company is regarded as one of his most accessible stage shows but the composer still asks a lot of both his performers and his audience. This is HumDrum AmDram's third Sondheim production, so they're used to his musical ways. That shows in this confident production in which Sondheim's words and music are woven around George Furth's story of five New York couples is various stages of wedded bliss.

Robert is the odd one out. He is celebrating his 35th birthday and being single, unable to commit to a relationship unlike those who gather to wish him happy birthday.

A few minor quibbles - the lyrics occasionally got lost, and some of the dialogue wasn't quite as sharp as it might have been on opening night.

But when it came together, as in the production number Side by Side, the pleasure of this Company was a joy.

Chris Wood holds the various strings together as Robert in what's essentially an ensemble piece, but mention should be made of Jeanette Broad's Ladies Who Lunch, Simone Laraway's as one of Robert's bird-brained bed-mates, and Caz Reeve who's Amy continually catches the eye.

Steve Pratt - The Portsmouth News - Wednesday 22nd July 1998