Review: High Society at The Barbican

Diane Dryan. Stanley Altman. Tony Powell. Lesley Fields. These names will mean nothing to you. But around 1977 they were singing Cole Porter songs in a charity production directed by my mother, Carole. Watching Rachel Kavanaugh’s feast of a production that is High Society at the Barbican brought memories of those performances flooding back and to borrow a Porter title it was simply ‘Sensational‘.

Based on The Philadelphia Story and the 1956 film that made Grace Kelly’s Tracy Lord iconic, High Society follows wealthy socialite Tracy (Helen George) as she prepares to marry dependable but dull George Kittredge (David Seadon-Young). The arrival of her ex-husband Dexter (Julian Ovenden), Spy magazine reporter Mike Connor (Freddie Fox) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Carly Mercedes Dyer) throws the wedding plans into disarray as Tracy’s amused mother (Felicity Kendal) and irrepressible Uncle Willie (Nigel Lindsay) look on before joining in the fun.

Kavanaugh has created exactly the sort of glamorous, big-hearted musical audiences are craving now. There is romance, wit, champagne, mistaken intentions and some of the finest songs ever written. You have to marvel at Porter coming up with the universal equaliser lyric, “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it” back in 1928 and it still works nearly a century later.

Following in the dainty footsteps of Grace Kelly can’t have been easy for Call the Midwife star Helen George, but she makes the role her own as we like to say and is helped by a lovely singing voice and engaging personality even when her character is being annoying.

Julian Ovenden is the charmer as the family (and staff’s) preferred choice of husband and clearly not over Tracy, while Freddie Fox, making his musical theatre debut, is completely at home in the genre. Determined to expose the excesses of America’s privileged elite, Mike is promptly seduced by the grandeur surrounding him. After all ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ if not him? And when Mike admits he could get used to it – holding out his glass for a refill – the line lands beautifully. He is after all the son of Edward Fox and a member of British acting royalty.

Freddie like every cast member contributes to the show’s enjoyment matching one another beat for beat and step for step in all of veteran choreographer Anthony Van Laast’s routines. They would definitely  get a ten from Shirley Ballas in this production that will particularly appeal to Strictly Come Dancing fans, what with Jon Morrell’s elegant costumes and Tom Rogers’s glorious set, dominated by its sweeping staircase. It’s all so pastel and  glamourous.

The score has been supplemented with others from Porter’s songbook and they slip into the story so naturally that you would swear they had been written for High Society – particularly  It’s Alright With Me. “It’s the wrong time and the wrong place, though your face is charming, it’s the wrong face.”

I knew every word, but had to remember not to sing along. The audience had paid to hear the cast, not me, although  the occasional hummed final note drifting around the theatre, told me I  wasn’t alone.

One of the evening’s greatest pleasures is Felicity Kendal. With her distinctive husky voice and twinkling sense of mischief, it is simply delicious to see her on stage. More importantly, she looks as though she is having the time of her life. We all did.

High Society is a welcome escape from the grey of the news. Who wouldn’t want to spend a few hours beside the Lord family swimming pool, where the champagne flows, Cole Porter is playing and romance is gloriously complicated? Anyone who says “How I do not!” to the offer of a trip on a gigantic yacht simply isn’t paying attention. Judging by the reaction at the Barbican, plenty of people were.

High Society is at the Barbican until 11 July followed by a UK and Ireland tour. https://HighsocietyMusical.com