Theatre
Desperately seeking the exit
Published 22 November 2007
Blondie's sleek, sophisticated pop has no place in this cynical production
Desperately Seeking Susan Novello Theatre, London WC2
Why is it that whenever someone has a successful, but obviously irreproducible idea, everyone rushes to imitate it? Mamma Mia! is a blissful show that inventively uses Abba hits to tell a cheesy tale about mothers and daughters. To date, that idea has been ripped off by musicals offering the back catalogues of Madness, Culture Club and Boney M in various silly ways. Yet, compared with Desperately Seeking Susan, they look like triumphs. This production is so dismal it is difficult to know where to start.
Peter Michael Marino, the person credited with the "concept" of this mongrel of a show, did himself no favours from the start. Ambitiously, he decided to pay dramatic homage not just to one, but to two giants of the 1980s - the pop band Blondie and the eponymous cult movie, starring Rosanna Arquette and Madonna.
The plot, which seemed rather simple in the film (but which reaches tortuous heights of complexity on stage), interweaves the lives of two women, Roberta the straight housewife (Rosanna Arquette) and Susan the sassy minx (Madge). Against a Manhattan backdrop, Roberta traces Susan via the classified ads and becomes comically embroiled in her racy life, finding her own true character along the way. As I remember it, the whole thing was a delight - Madonna managed to act for the first (and last) time in her career and the film channelled early Eighties fashion (lacy gloves, hair ribbons, ankle boots) in a sterling way.
If left alone, Desperately might have worked on stage. Perhaps. Yet Peter Michael Marino clearly couldn't help but wish he had his own Mamma Mia!-type, globally franchised money-spinner. And so he crowbarred the songs of Blondie into it. Blondie!
As any girl who grew up in the 1980s will know, Blondie was a British phenomenon. Debbie Harry is American, but Blondie was all about hanging out at suburban youth clubs in Britain, not Battery Park. Also, her style was light years from the Madonna lacy rah-rah skirt thing. Recall, if you can, the record covers of Like a Virgin (Madge in fully flounced, lacy glory) and Parallel Lines (Debbie Harry in a pencil-thin cocktail dress, a band tied around her upper arm). Peter Michael Marino probably never did Debbie Harry with a hairbrush in his bedroom, but someone should have told him that eliding Ms Harry with Mrs Ritchie is just wrong, all wrong.
I suspect Emma Williams knows it. Playing Susan/Madonna while singing Blondie, the poor girl has to bear the hefty weight of two pop goddesses, and sinks under the effort. She's not a bad singer, but the job is quite beyond her. Kelly Price as Roberta the suburban mouse comes off slightly better, making "Atomic" a compellingly sexy torch song of her own as she croons it on a rooftop to her new boyfriend Dez (Alec Newman). But then, it's a great track.
This, of course, is the problem. Rather than this being a seamless entity in which the songs unfold the story, as with Mamma Mia!, here the hits must exist alongside something that was already a fully formed tale. So every five minutes the plot stands still, twiddling its thumbs while the band thumps out a Blondie number.
Afterwards, we carry on as before. No wonder the director, Angus Jackson, has installed a running track on stage, on which cast members take turns to sprint and tumble. He has a lot to get through before everything must stand back because, hey-ho, here comes another Blondie track. Thankfully, he mops up a couple ("Call Me", "Sunday Girl") via Susan's boyfriend Jay (Mark McGee, with the best voice in the entire company), who is a rock star and who, therefore, can be expected to stand around singing. Jackson also sees off "Maria" by inventing a cleaning lady with the same name. But it's feeble stuff.
Two grim facts in the foyer alerted me that the night was going to be a disaster: the usherettes giving people in the balcony tickets for the stalls, and Blondie impersonators taking photos of themselves. Please. If you want a Debbie Harry theme night, you'd be better off buying a pencil skirt and a copy of Parallel Lines.
Pick of the week
Invisible Bonfires
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Glengarry Glen Ross
Apollo Theatre, London W1Jonathan Pryce stars in David Mamet’s indictment of capitalism.
Women of Troy
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The inimitable Katie Mitchell directs Euripides.
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