HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING
Gabrielle Friedman as Finch - ‘that’s F-I-N-C-H-’
‘This book is all that you need…how to succeed’ belts the opening chorus in Frank Loesser’s bitingly satirical musical. His show written in 1961 was amazingly prescient in its mickey taking of self-help tomes that promise easy success under the spell of some auto-proclaimed guru.
Allie Daniel - Rosemary
Based on a real life 1950s book with the same title, the Pulitzer-prize winning show is being given new life by a wonderfully youthful production at the Southwark Playhouse Borough. The musical charts the rise and rise of one J. Pierrepont Finch – former window cleaner eager to rise to the top of the corporate ladder and achieve his ultimate goal – a key to the executive washroom. Armed with ‘the book’ Finch has all the ammunition he needs to climb the greasy ladder mainly by slyly treading on everyone already with a foot on a rung. This involves outrageous flattery of immediate bosses and pretending that he is a fellow college old boy of the company’s all-powerful president, Mr J.B. Bigley. Of course the suited Manhattan madmen in the company ‘World Wide Wickets’ try to prevent his rise but Finch (who always insists that superiors spell out his name) has one better on them: the book. And there is love interest as one of the secretaries, Rosemary, falls deeply in love with our social climbing schemer but as in all great musicals, the path to the altar is strewn with anything but sweetly smelling odours.
With an acerbic script by Abe Burrows (who also cast his magic pen on Guys and Dolls), and a set of great songs words and music by Loesser, this show guarantees a good time.
True the songs are not as good as in Guys and Dolls but here Loesser set his own bar astronomically high. That said there are some musical crackers to pull off including ‘Brotherhood of Man’, ‘I Believe in You’ (sung by Finch looking at his own reflection in a mirror) and ‘Company Man’. There is also a razor-sharp ditty on the all-American housewife’s dream: ‘Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm’ which surely is one of the earliest feminist show songs.
The production here was small scale – only ten performers and included a richly diverse cast to give the whole thing a freshly minted glow. The intimacy of the stage and cast worked perfectly; its small scale giving it an edgy almost fringe theatre feel which chimed well with the knockabout satire of the piece. The performers were outstanding and none more so than Gabrielle Friedman as Finch. She did the ‘wide eyed innocent’ with the steely intent so well that I for one would join a ‘Finch for President’ campaign. She sang with gusto as did the entire cast. The choreography was packed with invention and laser-guided precision. One memorable example was in the song ‘Coffee Break’ in which the company staff contort with pain and writhe in simulated death rattle as they learn that the coffee machine has run out. Tracie Bennett was a hoot as Mr Bigley – small-framed but gigantic ego and I really fell for Allie Daniel as a towering Rosemary who gave a truly star performance bringing the vulnerable yet determined character to life with a sometimes sweet, sometimes powerful voice. Daniel is a name to watch in musical theatre. Elliot Gooch also did a fine job as the creepy loser Bud Frump, the hopeless nephew of nepotistic Bigley.
Though perhaps ten minutes too long, the company threw their considerable talents at the show and its high-octane energy raised the Playhouse roof. ‘How to Succeed’ really did succeed. That’s all that you need.
Production photos by Pamela Raith
