In the musicals Cabaret, Chicago and the title song to the film New York, New York, composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb produced some of Broadway’s most indelible moments. But they also turned out their fair share of clunkers. Can anyone recall their tribute to organised labour, Flora the Red Menace? The misguided musical adaptation of Zorba the Greek? Or the doomed Liza Minnelli vehicles, The Act and The Rink, whose critical response was so savage Kander complained “it was as if we had got attacked in the street”.
Yet even the most obscure Kander/Ebb creations contain something worth salvaging; and The World Goes Round was where they put them. It’s not a musical as such, rather an anthology of edited highlights, though what you most notice about Lotte Wakeham’s stylish and intimate revival is how spiritedly feminist the material often is.
Has any one Broadway team written more consistently satisfying roles for women above a certain age? The Act is a paean to later-life pleasures featuring a woman who enjoys her coffee in the morning, brandy in the evening, and Arthur in the Afternoon. The Grass is Always Greener, from Woman of the Year, finds a housewife and a socialite comparing their equally compromised roles.
But if there’s one piece that deserves to be revisited in full, it has to be 70, Girls, 70; a rakish piece about a gang of silver-haired shoplifters, which boils all the evils of modern life down to coffee in a cardboard cup. You can sense the caffeine levels rising within the terrific, five-strong cast, who become increasingly wired with every chorus.
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In repertoire at Stephen Joseph theatre, Scarborough, until 3 September. Box office: 01723 370541.
