Moon has yet to shine

Rachel Haliburton10 April 2012

Director Phil Willmott has prepared a decadent bag of tricks for those in search of an evening with the substance of a champagne bubble.

In 1944, only six years before Parisian Jean Anouilh wrote this play, he won great acclaim for his reworking of Sophocles' Antigone as a thinly disguised attack on the Vichy regime and the Nazis - but here he has cast off the trappings of war and created a drama that could compete with a feather boa for frivolity.

Willmott has had a successful run over the past year, with critically fanfared productions including Lysistrata, and Dick Barton, Special Agent (which he wrote) - but it seems that on this occasion the directorial golden touch has eluded him.

Ring Round the Moon is set at the estate of the wealthy Mr Messerschmann, where a party is being considerably enlivened by a cocktail of broken hearts, mistaken identities and cynical plotting.

Hugo is the black-hearted identical twin of Frederick, a creature so pathetically lovelorn, you can hear Cupid vomiting.

The object of both twins' ardour is Diana, Messerschmann's daughter - so Hugo has decided to play a cross between Pygmalion and a pimp, by dressing up a poor dancing girl as the belle of the ball in the hope that Frederick will fall for her.

The play deals with two of Anouilh's obsessions: money and inequality, but despite Willmott's protests, this is far from being one of his better works, and errs on the side of being dated, rather than a classic.

Stash Kirkbride does a great job at playing the conflicting characters of both twins, but among a potentially very entertaining cast there are too many fluffed lines, cumbersome choreographies and unconvincing deliveries to bring off this piece brillante. Maybe time will iron out the difficulties. But for now, it's a decidedly blue moon that hangs over this production.

Ring Round The Moon

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