THEATRE REVIEW: Gypsy - The Mill at Sonning, Reading.

This Styne //Sondheim// Laurents musical is the most ambitious production yet mounted by Sonning’s marvellously intimate Mill Theatre.  A legendary Broadway show, conceived for big stages, big personalities (Ethel Merman was in the original cast) and big voices lost nothing in Joseph’s Pitcher’s revival for what is almost a studio theatre.  

'Gypsy' is a musical of Wagnerian length (3 hours, including an interval) and a challenge to the resources of most theatre companies.  It’s a tribute to the Mill’s forces that Thursday’s performance seemed to pass by in little more than 30 minutes, with the pace and involvement never wavering.  

Perhaps it’s because the human story at Gypsy’s core cuts deeper than any spectacle. Rose, the stage mother to end all stage mothers, may be a sympathetic grotesque on paper but in Rebecca Thornhill’s high definition performance she was also a figure of depth and dignity - almost unbearably moving in the famous Act One closer, 'Everything’s Coming Up Roses', and demonstrating for the ages how she had the chops to ‘make it’ herself had not bad luck (and bad life choices) intervened (the concluding 'Rose’s Turn').   

As Louise, the neglected daughter who becomes an improbable star of burlesque once Rose’s favoured daughter June has decamped with her boyfriend, Evelyn Hoskins convinced as both the nervous also-ran and the glacial icon of sleaze she transforms into. Indeed, it’s fair to say these were two distinct performances, which is as it should be. Marina Tavolieri was equally good as the child star who outgrows her act.  

In support, Daniel Crowder was a steady and reliable Herbie, still vital and a credible match for Thornhill’s still-youthful Rose: the two make the best of their rather speedy ‘meet cute’ and its accompanying number ‘Small World’; and Charlie Waddell made the most of his solo turn as the ambitious hoofer Kansas (‘All I Need Is The Girl’).  Tim Maxwell-Clarke provided an impressive range of authority figures, from fathers to impresarios, and Laura Tyrer, Susannah Van Den Berg and Natalie Windsor were hilarious as the bump-and-grind girls who instruct Louise in their art (‘You Gotta Have A Gimmick’). Several of the cast doubled as musicians (often in character), which added to the theatrical impact.  

With a versatile set from Janson Denvir  and a new arrangement of the score from Francis Goodhand, Gypsy is nothing less than a triumph for the Mill at Sonning, an experience it’s worth travelling many miles to see.  

Reviewer - Paul Ashcroft
on - 1.6.23