The Chichester Pageant Theatre manufacturing of Stephen Sondheim’s 1990 musical is outwardly the primary skilled staging of the present for the reason that composer’s demise and is mounted simply as American candidates are saying their intention to run for President in 2024. Director Polly Findlay and designer Lizzie Clachan draw on this, setting of their restaging at a 2023 Nationwide Conference rally and within the White Home Oval Workplace. The Trump like arrival of the Proprietor (Peter Forbes) and the massive screens of 24-hour information protection from CNN and Fox makes a really apparent parallel to the historic tales. Nevertheless, one thing is misplaced within the trendy, large-scale, I’d say, overblown, method in comparison with the joyous intimacy of my earlier two viewings of this title on the 200-seat Watermill in Newbury and a 50-seat studio beginner model. The intimacy of these settings and staging as supposed as a Twentieth-century showman’s fairground attraction is totally misplaced on this grand scale and too usually lonely 1 or 2 figures centre stage fail to have the identical impression on us.

We meet eight would-be assassins within the opening quantity “Everyone has obtained the correct” because the Trump-like proprietor invitations every character to gather a weapo. Naturally sufficient we first meet John Wilkes Sales space (performed with a powerful moustache by Danny Mac) who killed Abe Lincoln on the Ford Theatre in Washington in 1861 and not less than appeared to have a vehement purpose for his motion. Then the 1933 try on Roosevelt by Guiseppe Zangara (Luke Brady) with its chilling electrocution scene and the 1901 assassination of McKinley by Leon Czolgosz (Sam Oladeinde).

The again tales of the 4 would-be assassins observe. The 1975 failed makes an attempt on Gerald Ford by Lynette Frome (Carly Mercedes Dyer) and Sarah Jane Moore (Amy Sales space-Metal), the demented Santa Claus Samuel Byck (Nick Holder) who threatened Nixon in 1974 and the deluded John Hinckley (Jack Swallow) whose try on Reagan in 1981 appeared designed to impress the actress, Jodie Foster. By the point Charles Guiteau (Harry Hepple) is hung for the homicide of Garfield in 1881 in a grotesque music and dance up the gallows step it’s all beginning to really feel a bit tedious.

The arrival of probably the most well-known murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald (Samuel Thomas) whose notorious assassination of Kennedy in 1963 lastly lifts the present because the eight others urge him to carry out the deed with the seemingly flimsy rationale of making an enduring legacy of fame for himself and themselves. The music “November 22, 1963” is the very best second within the present though the “will he, received’t he” second is fairly misplaced by our familiarity with the black and white footage of the particular occasion that we’ve seen so usually earlier than.

It’s framed as a musical revue, however the comedic parts appear suppressed on this staging and the formidable abilities of Carly Mercedes Dyer and Lizzie Connelly are fairly wasted of their roles. The citation from Demise of a Salesman that “consideration should be paid” as a justification for his or her actions is fairly overwhelming by the overproduced staging. It is a musical that may have been higher within the Minerva Theatre the place we may “listen” to the insanity of their eyes and the music fairly than the multimedia razzamatazz of the trendy setting.

As we watch the 2023/24 US Presidential election course of you are feeling the candidates usually tend to die of previous age or an unlucky fall however maybe given the horrific gun tradition of the USA, this staging could show to be prescient of one thing to return with a 14th assassination try. We should wait and see however within the meantime, this manufacturing is one for hardcore Sondheim followers and never for these new to his work. For these, I like to recommend they begin with Into the Woods or Sweeney Todd the place there’s actual drama, witty storytelling and significantly better tunes and go away this one for the hardcore followers.

Assessment by Nick Wayne

Ranking: ★★

Seat: Stalls, Row O | Value of Ticket: £70