'High Society' The Old Vic ****

There are musicals today that should take its influences from the glitz and glamour eras from the 1920’s through to the 1950’s and the excessive spending the certain folks would spend on a wedding, even if it is their second or third marriage. The Old Vic’s current production and Kevin Spacey’s final show as Artistic Director is Arthur Kopit and Cole Porter’s 1998 musical, ‘High Society’ which is based on Phillip Barry’s play, ‘The Philadelphia Story’ was an elegantly staged tuneful show and the performances were brilliantly depicted.

‘High Society’ is set in a waterhouse estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island 1958 where we are familiarised with ostentatious socialite, Tracy Lord who is in the process of planning and celebrating an extravagant wedding to her insipid fiancée, George Kettridge (Richard Grieve). But there is a sting in this tale as Tracy’s highly successful jazz musician ex-husband; C.K. Dexter Haven has been invited to her wedding by her sister, Dinah Lord (Ellie Bamber). Alternatively, Tracy’s father, Seth Lord (Christopher Ravenscroft) has a sordid past which is why reporter, Mike Conner (Jamie Parker) and photographer, Liz Imbrie (Annabel Scholey) have humiliating information on his past and are about to expose this information to the American civilisation. However, Tracy is already informed of these people and their motives to destroy the Lord family’s name and she is hell-bent in conjuring a revenge plan to protect her mother, Mother Lord (Barbra Flynn) and her father, well sort of as sh’e angry with what her father has done. As such she decides to mock Mike and Liz by pretending that her comical uncle, Uncle Willie (Jeff Rawle) is in fact her father and that her father is her uncle and vice versa.  Over the course of the production, it is very noticeable that Tracy and C.K. Dexter are still in love with one another and this is apparent by the swimming pool, as well as the pending marriage to George is a pretentious approach for her to show off and that her love for George is fake. Mike becomes besotted by Tracy’s womanly magnetism and when they are both incredibly drunk after the pre-wedding festivities, they soon end up in bed with each other.  Conversely, the morning after the night before Tracy realised what has happened and she is shocked by this and when Gorge soon finds out he is of course peeved off and states that he does not wish to marry Tracy as he realises that he is not welcome into the Lord’s family unit.  At the finale, a wedding does take place when Tracy and C.K. Dexter re-kindle their affections for each other and they make a conscious decision to remarry. Kopit’s narrative along with Porter’s music and lyrics are alluring as it is particularly fascinating to observe how three opposing men are fighting for one woman’s love and are on a charm offensive into getting into the lady’s heart. The musical numbers such as; “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire”, “She’s Got That Thing”, “True Love” and “Lets Misbehave” were atmospheric and with the addition of Joey Powell (Joe Stilgoe) who asks for requests was a grand choice.

One found the performances by the company of, ‘High Society’ to be gracefully beguiling through mesmeric vocals and effortless dance sequences by an incredible ensemble team. Kate Fleetwood is miraculous as pompous lady of leisure, Tracy Lord; specifically how she moves around in her costume in such a whimsical manner and her vocals in “Once Upon a Time” does show how compassionate Tracy can be, additionally, her hair and makeup is stunning here.   Rupert Young is remarkable as Tracy’s ex-spous, C.K. Dexter Haven; mainly when he smoulderingly offers his beloved boat to Tracy and George as wedding present, but you can see his breaking heart when he sings an amorous serenade to Tracy with “Samantha”, also he is quite hunky too.

Maria Friedman’s direction and Nathan M Wright’s choreography is enticing here as they have been able to transport us to the Pizzazz of a 1950’s upper-class family atmosphere and the attention to detail of the characterisations and dance arrangements were luminously off the Richter scale. Tom Pye’s design is exquisite as the set pops up through the floor in such transcendent fashion and it is stylistically lavish and glamourous with the lovely scenic art. Furthermore, Peter Mumford’s lighting and Simon Baker’s sound designs really complement Pye’s set in a majestic way, on the other hand Finn Ross’ video design of the swimming pool feels often lost which is quite sad as he is an outstanding video designer. Overall, the experience of,’ High Society’ was an entertaining and eye-grapping show, well recommended.