Call the Midwife star Helen George makes a poised return to the West End stage in an otherwise lacklustre production of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s problematic musical. A fantasy of a white English schoolmistress ‘civilising’ an Asian man-baby monarch (Broadway stalwart Darren Lee) in 1860s Siam, this show somehow feels more offensive today than Carousel or even South Pacific.
Bartlett Sher’s revival of his 2015 US production comes to London after a year-long UK tour: it’s technically competent but stolid and stale. Rather than interrogate the racial stereotyping of the script, the pidgin English and the periodically sing-song score, he gives us the full gamut of orientalism. There’s a seemingly endless parade of sweeping silks and trundling columns: demure, surrendered wives and cutely smiling children. Actors are shunted centre stage to sing their songs then scooped back into the melee.
