The iconic Frank Loesser musical gets a welcome revival with an eye-opening update

The pink neon ladder heading ever upwards is a visual cue to the USP of this timely, thought-provoking revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The title refers to a handy little self-help manual for those who want to climb the career ladder. Designer Sophia Pardon’s set hints shrewdly to the eye-opening twist of an update the director Georgie Rankcom (plus producers Big Con and The Grey Area) bring to this 1961 satirical musical, as well as a useful literal prop.

Ambitious young window cleaner J Pierrepont Finch has aspirations to enter the world of business, - aided by a copy of the eponymous manual. Finch encounters JB Biggley, president of the alliterative World Wide Wicket Company and, thanks to the book (whose advice we hear voiced by RuPaul's Drag Race judge Michelle Visage), has the face to blag an introduction to the personnel department. From then on, Finch’s rise is apparently unstoppable.

Finch and Biggley are played by actors who identify as she/her and are utterly convincing as their characters, which were written to be played by men in the original. Tracie Bennett’s hunched bossman Bigley is a miracle of male entitlement. Gabrielle Friedman’s Finch is engaging and likeable enough to scale that ladder through charm and determination, as well as attract the eye of Rosemary Pilkington, the office vamp whom Allie Daniel (also she/her) invests with a level of flamboyance and front that’d give the finest drag queens a run for their money.

What makes this musical is the full-blooded delivery of 14 numbers from the Guys and Dolls composer/lyricist, Frank Loesser (including standards such as ‘I Believe in You’) by a cast of just 10. These are dramatised with terrific, exhilarating choreography courtesy of Alexzandra Sarmiento, who makes clever use of that shocking-pink ladder.

Wherever she can inject glitz and glamour, designer Pardon makes sure her costumes are extraordinarily bombastic and fun, especially in a sublimely funny moment when all the female employees arrive at a work do in identical frocks advertised as ‘Paris Originals’.

It could all have seemed rather out of date, especially the relegation of women to the roles of secretaries (and mistresses), if it weren’t for that clever subtle casting. The audience took it all to heart and now, alongside Guys and Dolls (at Bridge Theatre until 2 September), there are two Loesser roaring successes lighting up London stages.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Pamela Raith

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying runs until Saturday 17 June. 7.30pm, 3pm (Tue & Sat only). £35, £28 concs. Southwark Playhouse, SE1 6BD.