We were fortunate to see the 1985 version of Me and My girl with Robert Lindsay and Emma Thompson at Adelphi theatre in London with Stephen Fry's new book to Noel Gay music which added his 1937 hit "Leaning on the lamppost" to the second act. It was a joyous fun award winning show that lived long in the memory as a result of Lindsay's delightful cockney charm and musical comedy abilities. It was therefore with some high expectations that we returned to the show in Chichester over thirty years later.
Director Daniel Evans, choreographer Alistair David and designer Lez Brotherston who had previously all staged Fiddler in the roof at Chichester return to stage this production on the thrust stage at the Festival theatre . Although this had worked in recent revivals of Gypsy and Half a Sixpence , this production felt shoe horned onto the thrust with a third of the audience side on. As a result there were some wonderfully conceived back wall sets of the house in the country exterior and interiors and a rather uninteresting black tab and projections for the London scenes. It also required actors to regularly enter from the auditorium vomitories and this constrained our view from the side on seats . There is no additional writing credit but this production seemed littered with weak jokes and puns in the tradition of British music hall from which the Gay's melodies were first written. "Aperitif ? No I have got my own". This music hall heritage seems to be the motivation for casting Matt Lucas in the central character of Bill Snibson, the cockney lad who finds to his surprise that he is the sole heir to the title of Lord Hareford if he can pass a fit and proper test.
