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A whole world away from the domestic drawing rooms of many of his plays, Noël Coward’s 1950 musical ‘The Ace of Clubs’ evokes a Soho nightclub frequented by some nasty spivs. But these shady patrons don’t reflect a jot on the entertainment: this respectable joint offers only genteel show tunes.
There’s never any real threat in Coward’s story of nightclub star Pinkie Leroy (Emma Harris), who is troubled by club owner Benny’s dodgy dealings with the local gangster. After falling for a random sailor (Gary Wood), Pinkie inadvertently gets them both involved in some of the shifty stuff, and when a mysterious package gets lost, then switched with the wrong one, confusion reigns. The plot chugs along to its disappointingly obvious happy ending.
Though the music offers an element of glitz in a seedy setting, in truth the songs are pretty disappointing and don’t really help to flesh out an already flimsy plot. Jack Thorpe-Baker’s production is staged rather well though, transforming the Union Theatre into the club itself, complete with smart cabaret tables. Congenial compere Felix Felton (Michael Hobbs) beams out at us as if we were all regular patrons, and we’re able to see what’s going on front and backstage through some seamless transitions.
The ensemble perform a couple of the numbers very well – ‘Something About a Sailor’ is particularly rousing – and Mark Smith’s choreography is excellent given the tight space. Lucy May Barker is very good as singer Baby Belgrave, with excellent comic timing in ‘Three Juvenile Delinquents’. The two leads Harris and Wood are disappointing though, with voices that struggle to fill even this tiny theatre. One or two of the numbers also feel very dated, especially in the stereotype-laden ‘I Like America’ where the sailor explains why he loathes pretty much every other country on the planet apart from the glorious US of A.
In all it makes for a benign enough evening, but suffers from a lack of any of that Coward spark.