Gary Wilmot in Half a Sixpence
Half a Sixpence – review
By Victoria Marsden
A rags to riches (and back again) musical tale of love and self discovery
The curtain lifts and Kipps (our leading man) sets the scene beneath a dim blue glow. Bright light floods the stage and the cast sweep on, building the set as they sing and dance, beaming at the crowd as they scurry and twirl, skirts, top hats and canes flying. I sit up in my seat better to absorb the sheer magic that is a full-blown musical. My companion for the evening shrinks away from the noise and the glare, unsettled by the spontaneous singing and unnaturally animated faces. And therein lies the lesson… Half a Sixpence is a riot of sights, sounds and colours, but not for the musically faint of heart. Based on the 1905 novel Kipps by H G Wells and adapted from the 1963 stage production by Heneker and Cross, Half a Sixpence is set in the seaside town of Folkestone and boasts 25 musical numbers (that’s an extra seven songs added to the original score). But if you enter into the spirit of the proceedings, which the audience around me most certainly did, the excess of singing isn’t as cringeworthy as it may first appear. The songs tell the story and are enhanced by wonderful diction from the cast, particularly Gary Wilmot in the role of Kipps himself. At first I thought that perhaps the enthusiasm of the audience was simply a result of the fact that they remembered the show from first time round. I would estimate the average age of the audience to be around 70, with blue rinses as far as the eye could see. However, I soon found myself drawn into the world being created before my eyes with the best, and the frailest, of them.
Warner Brown, writer of the new stage version, said that he wanted the production to be “fluid, free-flowing and seamless”, in order to hold the short attention span of today’s society (for ‘society’, read ‘youth’). And I have to say that with the help of a talented set designer and choreographer, I believe he achieved this. Despite a variety of backdrops (from a deep blue ocean and sky, to a collage of Folkestone scenery) and stage sets (from shop, to pub, to building site, to pier, to cricket ground and more), there was not a moment of watching stagehands dashing about in the darkness. (Why is it apparently assumed that if the lights are dimmed we cannot see the men in headsets dashing back and forth with props?) Instead, the backdrops glided swiftly up and down from the ceiling. So swiftly in fact, that I did not realise that it was happening until quite some way into the production. To solve the problem of props, the cast were put to work and set changes were incorporated into the dance routines. Far from jarring, it somehow began to seem natural that people should sweep on stage bearing mannequins or ladders and wheeling bunkbeds. I almost felt at a loss without a wardrobe or a mop when I left the theatre. Half a Sixpence centres around the love story of Kipps and Ann, a pair of poor orphans separated as children. The play begins with this separation as we see Arthur Kipps (or ‘Arty’, as she calls him) giving Ann half a sixpence as they are torn apart (the other half of which he keeps, think a poor man’s locket). From here we arrive directly in Kipps’ adult life to find him working as a shopboy, but his situation soon changes when he comes into an inheritance of £1200 a year. I shan’t ruin the entire storyline for you, but suffice to say that he soon abandons his working class roots (including Ann) in pursuit of life as a gentleman. His earlier dream of owning a banjo is replaced by that of a motorcar and a house with 11 bedrooms, ‘Kipps Towers’ (personally I’m still working towards the banjo).
And so we are introduced to the not-so-underlying theme of class wars and class guilt – is it better to be upper class and wealthy, or working class and happy? Predictability it isn’t long before Kipps begins to see the light, ditching his newly acquired upper class lady in favour of the devoted Ann. I don’t think I’ve spoilt things too much for you there, as this is not the play for you if you’re hoping for any shocking twists – the plot is fairly formulaic. Finally, the story comes full circle and Kipps is taught humility once more when he loses his wealth. In the final scene we see him living a comfortable family life with Ann and their children, running a bookshop together for a living. Admittedly there is a slight twist at the end which I shan’t divulge entirely, but let’s just say they don’t stay poor for long – after all, Kipps has learnt his lesson and we all like a happy ending. Without such a strong cast, Half a Sixpence may well have fallen from charming to fairly dire, but there was barely a fault to be found in the performance of anyone on stage, be it a lead or a supporting role.
Gary Wilmot as Kipps displayed a great sense of comic timing, pulling off some truly cheesy jokes with surprising panache. At one point he was ‘drunk’ and stumbled about the stage accordingly. This could have been an embarrassing moment for all concerned, but the audience bought into it entirely, cheering him on in his exaggerated silliness. I won’t admit to having laughed out loud, but I might have done…His shining moment had to be the big emotional number ‘What Should I Feel?’, which showed off his voice to new heights and was so powerful it was verging on operatic. Kristy Cullen took the lead role of Ann for the night, although she is usually understudy to Claire Marlowe. She displayed a fantastic musical theatre voice which was strong and emotive with perfect enunciation. Her stiff acting and slightly bizarre mock-Cockney accent (reminiscent of Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em) let her down a little, but it was generally a strong performance. The rest of the cast were also strong, with exaggerated “I’m a baddy” facial expressions from Andrew Bolton as Mr Shalford (Kipps’ boss at the shop) and flamboyant eccentricity from David Delve as Mr Chitterlow, the playwright. The supporting female roles of Flo, Victoria and Kate (played by Claire Parrish, Caroline Graham and Kelly Sims) deserve a special mention as they succeeded several times in outshining the female leads, so dazzling was their presence on stage. Yes, Half a Sixpence is over the top and admittedly cheesy in places, but at the end of the day it is a musical - as long as you know what you’re signing up for, you won’t be disappointed.
