“He can’t hear a thing, he’s as deaf as a door-nail/ Deaf deaf deaf”. Thank you, Lionel Bart. Some 50 years after it was written, the last unproduced musical from the late Bart, writer of Oliver!, gets a belated world premiere, and while Quasimodo shows more signs of life than that door-nail, no one could possibly accuse it of being a lost masterpiece.
In the fiendishly cramped space of the King’s Head, the design — which quirkily conveys the inner workings of that giant Parisian clock via ladders and spokes of Clingfilm — looks like a tiny workroom from the set of Spider Man.
Robert Chevara’s production gives little sense of time or place, providing instead a small flurry of characters who never really settle in our minds. Those not familiar with Victor Hugo’s source material dramatis personae beforehand are unlikely to emerge any the wiser. The songs come thick and fast, to no particularly great returns, although the likes of Abracadabra and Introducing You are certainly jolly enough.
No character in Chris Bond’s script shows much sign of either hinterland or motivation, although both gipsy Esmeralda (Zoe George) and hunchback bell-ringer Quasimodo (Steven Webb) rise confidently above the ill-defined rabble.
What George lacks in clothing on her top half she makes up for in feisty charm and the sweet-voiced Webb, dressed as though he’s just come out of one of the jauntier shops in Old Compton Street, allows Quasimodo’s soul to sing in song rather than the laboured words of his dialogue.
Their scenes à deux towards the end are the evening’s muted highlight.
Until April 13 (020 7478 0160, kingsheadtheatre.com)
