A fearless update of a much-neglected Sondheim musical

This early musical by Stephen Sondheim did not find its public when it premiered on Broadway in 1964, closing after just nine performances. Arthur Laurents’ off-the-wall book was probably too opaque and the handful of memorable Sondheim songs almost worked better out of context. Happily, two of these featured in Sondheim's 1976 compilation show Side by Side, when I was first captivated by the title song and ‘Everybody Says Don’t’.

The almost absurdist political satire is set in small-town America, where the dictatorial mayor of a town on its uppers has a brainwave. To attract tourists (and their wallets), she engineers a fake miracle – a bare rock that suddenly spouts water, which she proclaims has Lourdes-style curative properties. Her posse of yes-men are right behind her, but there's a potential blot on the landscape – the town’s assortment of misfits, who are confined to the ‘Cookie Jar’, the curiously named lunatic asylum.

Sceptical Nurse Fay Apple decides to test this 'miracle' by leading her 49 charges to the rock to see if its water restores their sanity. When Mayor Cora Hoover Hooper’s wingman Schub sees the danger and tries to head them off, mayhem ensues as they mingle with the townsfolk until it’s impossible to tell who is sane. Nurse Fay, as the subversives’ self-appointed ringleader, has stolen the Cookie Jar records too, so hopes of identifying the inmates are pinned on a new asylum assistant manager. Could this be J Bowden Hapgood, the mysterious stranger who has just hit town?

Anyone Can Whistle has enjoyed small-scale UK runs in the past (Jermyn Street Theatre in 2010 and Union Theatre in 2017), but it benefits from a bigger production with more bells and, er, whistles. Its treatment at the hands of Grey Area Theatre is certainly larger and its urgent USP is finding in this tale of manipulated misfits a more positive paean to those who are not afraid to be different.

From the get-go, as the company bound on to designer Cory Shipp’s traverse stage, sporting poster-coloured playful costumes and dancing up a storm thanks to Lisa Stevens’ choreography, it’s clear that they are deliciously different. All are talented triple threats and they come in all shapes, sizes, genders and, refreshingly, ages.

Huge-voiced Alex Young’s glitteringly-clad and magnificently shameless Mayor Cora, whinging to her ill-assorted posse that she can’t bear unpopularity, is a real scene-stealer. Her henchmen, Danny Lane’s Comptroller Schub, Samuel Clifford’s Treasurer Cooley and Renan Teodoro’s Chief of Police Magruder, are a fun bunch of all-sorts. And there’s delicious dramatic tension as it looks like Chrystine Symone’s feisty, sweet-voiced Nurse Fay and Jordan Broatch’s charismatic Hapgood, the stranger she hopes will prove an ally, have a crazy chemistry that means they might indeed get together.

Georgie Rankcom’s surefooted direction has the ‘cookies’ released from the jar and mingling with the audience, so we are counted among those who might turn out to be off their rockers. Meanwhile the band, under MD Natalie Pound, exuberantly relish Sondheim's songs, which means the audience does too.

Yes, it’s untidy, and yes, it’s full-on chaotic, but Anyone Can Whistle has plenty to say, whether you're a Sondheim fan or not.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Danny With a Camera

Anyone Can Whistle runs until Saturday 7 May. 7.30pm (Mon-Sat), 3pm (Tue & Sat only). £27.50, £22 concs. Southwark Playhouse, SE1 6B. 020 7407 0234. www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk