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Actress Helen George swaps the aprons of the BBC’s ‘Call the Midwife’ for this revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 1951 Golden Age musical. But Bartlett Sher’s production is an equally starchy affair.
Adapted from Margaret Landon’s 1944 novel ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ – in turn, based on real events – the plot sees George’s English widow Anna Leonowens arriving in mid-nineteenth century Thailand (then Siam) to teach the king’s many wives and children. They immediately clash.
With the distance of time, this is a strange show. The arrangements are beautifully done. ‘Getting to Know You’ is charmingly sung by George, who channels an exasperated Julie Andrews in her engaging performance. Darren Lee’s manchild king, whose curiosity about the world turns him stroppily insecure, makes for a strong scene partner. When the show zeroes in on their zingy chemistry, it’s fun. And at the level of spectacle, it’s pretty gorgeous to look at.
But its politics are a mess, as Rodgers & Hammerstein seek to offer a critique of imperialism while introducing a white woman to show everyone what’s what. The king’s many wives play largely the same role as the sumptuous set design – to provide a theatrically painterly backdrop to Anna’s modernity. An in-show interpretation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ links the king’s court and slavery, but does so here for a character who is barely sketched in.
Unlike other recent revivals of shows with tricky subject matter, Sher’s lavishly respectful revival doesn’t do much to interrogate the story’s assumptions. As a result, Anna’s ongoing faffs with her mobility-restricting hoop skirt have to do a lot of heavy lifting as a mild satire on the limits of her own Western freedom. Nevertheless, Cezarah Bonner as Lady Thiang, the king’s ‘head wife’, makes her assessment of this sartorial contraption – ‘barbarian’ – land like a punch.