It’s shaping up to be a fine year for films-turned-stage-musicals. Legally Blonde will pack in the punters for as long as shops stock Red Bull and pink clothes, and here comes a deserved West End outing for Alfie Byrne, an Oscar Wilde-loving bus conductor in Sixties Dublin and hero of a little-seen 1994 movie starring Albert Finney.
There may be no shrieking sorority sisters but fans of thoughtful, understated work will be well pleased that this production has transferred from the Union Theatre, long the most consistently impressive producer of Off-West End musicals.
So there’s Alfie (pleasant Paul Clarkson), who lives with his lemon-faced sister, reads poetry, cooks "foreign things" and runs an amateur dramatic society in the local church hall. It’s not a desperate stretch to conclude that, like his idol Oscar, Alfie might be gay but this isn’t something he’s prepared to admit to himself, let alone a notion that occurs to any of the bustling thespians.
Yet over the course of rehearsals for Salome ("the play with immodest dancing in it"), all manner of sexual secrets tumble out.
The piece is, thankfully, far more surprising than the bland first half would have us imagine. The book (Terrence McNally), music (Stephen Flaherty) and lyrics (Lynn Ahrens) achieve moments of real grace, not least in The Cuddles Mary Gave, an elderly man’s poignant hymn to his late wife. Director Ben De Wynter marshals the action efficiently, and there’s sprightly work from the large ensemble. A transfer of some importance.
Until 27 February. Box office: 0845 017 5584. www.artstheatrewestend.com
A Man Of No Importance
Arts Theatre
Great Newport Street, Covent Garden, WC2H 7JB
