Screaming Lord Sutch was not a lord; he added the title by deed poll. He brought gaiety to the life of the nation as the rock-musician founding leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party (typical campaign slogan: “Vote for insanity, you know it makes sense”) but in private he suffered lifelong depression. The man who bounced back from 39 local and national election defeats in his trademark top hat and leopardskin coat, hanged himself in 1999 at the age of 58.
As Samuel James’s astutely balanced performance in the title role demonstrates, contrast is core to Sutch’s experiences. “There’s always a serious message through a bit of fun!” was a favourite line. Fun ricochets between stage and auditorium in James Graham’s take on Sutch’s life (not least in percussive audience participation led by composer-musician, Tom Attwood). In the setting of a working men’s club (stacks of wooden chairs, a Guinness toucan poster, chunky wireless and television sets in Bob Bailey’s sly design), Sutch’s career is transformed into a collage of music-punctuated comic turns based on music hall, pantomime, radio sketches and television series (potentially tricky to follow if you aren’t up on your Goons, Pete and Dud, Morecambe and Wise, Steptoe, etc). Serious issues snake through the storyline: institutional hypocrisies are exposed (democracy may be open to all, but election costs are raised to deter such as Sutch); postwar visions of a new, class-free world fade; depression brackets mayhem in moments of stunned silence.
Scene by scene, there are some cracking slapstick routines (finessed by fun-meister and guest director Cal McCrystal) and consistently brilliant impersonations from the actor-musician cast (Joanna Brookes, especially, a comic chameleon). Overall, though, in spite of flowing direction from Simon Stokes, the multiple-sketch format feels too fragmented for the subject. Rather like Sutch’s political career, the show ultimately delivers more flash than clout.
