Reuniting with the frankly brilliant choreographer Ellen Kane, he puts everything on the combative front-foot; the curtain rises on a spectacle of tireless physical activity and, after 110 minutes, descends on a tightly drilled chorus-line, a coming full circle from trial to execution. There’s no let-up in between.
As with Sunset Boulevard, Foster deploys a roving camera, catching the fretful auditionees up close as they turn to confide their hopes and fears. Moreover, he wields the technological might of the space, so that lighting rigs swoop down and rotate in imposing phalanxes, thrilling but also intimidating. There’s nothing cosily showbiz about it; the original’s stripped-back ethos is achieved anew but it all feels even more, not less, in the glare.
That might make the experience sound over-intense. But there are delightful comic numbers here – not least Sing!, in which husband and wife hopefuls join forces to elaborate on her appalling singing voice with a neat, undercutting physical virtuosity: Katie Lee’s Kristine reaches a joyously hideous high note before sliding into the splits.
A bubbling constant is wit, humour and the hustling, charismatic vitality of youth. Everyone’s dancing their socks off (no legwarmers, phew) and expressing a joie de vivre even amid the killing circumstances. In I Can Do That, Redmand Rance’s Mike coolly slinks through a succession of show-off moves and caps it by breaking not into a sweat but into song as he insouciantly eyeballs Adam Cooper’s impassive director Zach.
The relatable pathos lies in the side-show nature of the real-lives divulged to impress him. Stories of parental neglect and contempt, adolescent angst, tales of being touched up or put down aren’t nothing, but it’s the fact that musical theatre, and the sense of belonging it offers, has become everything to these auditionees that creates the tension and substance. We grasp why it matters, yearn with them for the elusive dream-like elixir of stage-life.
Until Dec 31. Tickets: 0116 242 3595; curveonline.co.uk
