REVIEWS

Spend Spend Spend - Watermill, Newbury
Paul Shave

I don't like modern musicals - give me Oklahoma ! or Oliver! every time - so I approached Spend Spend Spend! (so many exclamation marks!) without a great deal of enthusiasm. But it's brilliant; energetically, engrossingly, foot-tappingly brilliant.

This is the well-known story of the rise and fall of Viv Nicholson, the big pools winner of 1961. It's always a pleasure to see Watermill regular Karen Mann, here playing the older Viv who looks back and narrates the story acted out by Kirsty Hoiles as young Viv. This was a great performance from Kirsty Hoiles, starting as the innocent ice cream girl in Castleford and coarsening into the blowsy, brash and brassy wife of a string of unsuitable husbands.

The first half builds up to the big pools win, with a great set of songs by Steve Brown, from solos like the wistful The Boy Next Door to rousing ensemble numbers like John Collier . By the final number, Spend Spend Spend , the amazing sight of the (mostly male) cast dressed as bunny girls and prancing around the stage brought the house down.

The second half is much more poignant, as Viv realises that money isn't the answer. "I miss the way life used to be", she sings as she and husband Keith (Greg Barnett) drift apart and Keith dies. All the money gets frittered away and Viv ends up working in a hairdressing salon, looked down on by the customers. Karen Mann gives us pathos by the bucketload, but there is an upbeat ending to what is really a good old-fashioned morality play. I suspect that the real Viv was not the easiest person to get on with, but the Mann/Hoiles duo make her a likeable person who is the victim of circumstances.

Among the strong cast, Graham Kent is Viv's bruiser of a father, and Susannah van den Berg is a bundle of energy as Florrie and formidable as a bunny girl.

The versatile set made good use of the limited space and evoked a glow of 60s nostalgia. The small size of the Watermill stage can make some productions rather overpowering, but not in this case - the music, singing and particularly the dancing are so in-your-face that you can't help being sucked in by the enthusiasm of it all.

The partnership of director and choreographer Craig Revel Horwood and musical arranger Sarah Travis once again shows their excellence at the Watermill with this outstanding production.