This irrepressible ska musical, transposing battle of the sexes comedy from Love’s Labour’s Lost to Windrush-era Britain, first burst on to this theatre’s stage 20 years ago to great acclaim and a West End transfer.
Paul Sirett and Tameka Empson’s show returns with incredibly infectious songs, ebullient spirit and stunning performances, surfing on its comic charms even when the story seems to slow and then run out of steam.
Ferdy (Ashley Samuels), Bernie (Nathanael Campbell), Dennis (Khalid Daley) and Lennie (Karl Queensborough) have left their Caribbean homes for the “mother country” – a postwar Britain for which their peers have fought, and that they are now prepared to help rebuild. They come with big dreams and to aid their rise they vow to forgo all love and romance for the next three years with the women in their lives – Sybil (Gabrielle Brooks), Mary (Leanne Henlon), Zulieka (Rachel John) and Kathy (Juliet Agnes).
Paul Joseph’s music is consummately catchy from In Inglan, when the men dream of their new, big, life before their ship has docked, to the combative Better Than You, sung as a chorus of men against women, and the sexy Ain’t Nothing Hotter. It is hard not to foot-tap along, and the cast, each as strong as the next, harmonises beautifully as a chorus.
Directed by Tinuke Craig, there is bags of warmth, verve and physical comedy. The production never loses its smile even in moments when characters – engineers, university graduates and aspiring academics – are forced to take up lowly jobs to make ends meet. The racist hostility that this Windrush generation faced is clear, but we don’t always feel its sting. It seems almost defiantly upbeat, employing radical Black joy against pain.
The Windrush scandal is mentioned, so is the infamous notice “No Irish, no blacks, no dogs”. Some of it is too declamatory, though it sits well enough within the picaresque, at times, farcical, tone of the piece.
Characters convene in their shared boarding house or at Piccadilly Circus (set design by Jasmine Swan), the latter conjured by a period billboard and a comically flimsy statue of Eros, before which the romance plays out.
Empson returns as Mrs Aphrodite, and delivers riffs in-between the drama from a balcony. She has winning charisma and makes gentle jokes but when she climbs down to the stage it veers on becoming its own standup act, especially at the end of the first half when the atmosphere is party-like but the drama at a near standstill.
Perhaps that is the point: the focus of this show is fun and entertainment, and it stays lovable until the end. At three hours long, it is baggy, yet it’s hard to resent its big-hearted excesses.
• At Theatre Royal Stratford East, London, until 30 March
