Southwark’s tiny Union Theatre has become the go-to destination for musical fans on a budget. And Kirk Jameson’s revival of ‘Dames at Sea’ proves once more that you don’t need 100-carat production values to have fun. For in this ’60s-penned spoof of lavish 1930s musicals, with their pearls, girls and wised-up attitude, 100-carat women are indispensable.
The dames are the only memorable characters in a show that sets off across a sea of silliness: namely queen diva Mona Kent and her young rival Ruby, a plucky chorus-line wannabe from Centreville, Utah.
Gemma Sutton shines as Ruby, bringing warmth, jaunty comedy, emotional depth and thrilling vocal potential. Ingénue heroines almost never steal the show – especially when it’s swarming with wisecracking chorus girls and aerobic sailors and is run by a mean queen bee with all the best lines. But Sutton’s Midwestern sweetheart is a real homey pin-up, a girl-next-door with a clear voice and wide-open heart.
Originally written as short sketch, by committee (George Haimsohn, Jim Wise and Robin Miller), ‘Dames at Sea’ has its flaws. It parodies Busby Berkeley-style extravaganzas with great brio, but you probably have to be a fan already to get it. Its plot is as skimpy as a showgirl’s shorts and its sense of humour as camp as a poop deck of dancing sailors. Choreographer Drew McOnie stages their moves with tongue-in-cheek aplomb: the synchronised swimming number, which makes leggy waves in this tiny space, is a triumph.
There’s hardboiled support from Rosemary Ashe as the monstrous Mona – shaking her curls like Shirley Temple and snarling like a Rottweiler. And Ian Mowat does a great cringeing cameo as a luckless ship’s Captain in her thrall.
Inevitably, it goes overboard from time to time and lacks consistency and polish – but it’s a sparkler nonetheless; another fringe gem for the Union.