'The Go-Between' Apollo Theatre ***

For me, personally there are moments in my life that I wouldn’t appreciate being reminded of and I am sure that some other people would feel the same; on the other hand, some would like to revisit their childhood memories. The West End musical production of Richard Taylor and David Wood’s, ‘The Go-Between’ which is based on L P Hartley’s novel of the same name was quite an amiable show on a part of a person’s life and with delightful presentations all round.

‘The Go-Between’ is situated in 1900 where we are introduced to elderly gentlemen, Leo Colston who guides us through some of her childhood memories; in particular when he used to go on his summer visits to Brandham Hall in Norwich with his best friend, Marcus (Samuel Menhinick/Matty Norgen/Archie Stevens). Nonetheless, when Marcus becomes exceedingly ill and as such; it is Leo’s responsibility to be the enigmatic messenger to one of the ladies of the manor, Marian and local farmer, Ted as it appears that they are having some sort of a love affair. However, Marian is in fact already engaged to Viscount Tremingham (Stephen Carlisle) and due to this very fact, Marian makes it increasingly clear that the young Leo that if the note-passing is found out by Tremingham , Leo will have to face the consequences for his failure. Over the course of the performance, when Leo is sent to deliver one of Marian’s letters to Ted, Leo has a rather nasty accident and because of this, Leo is the subject of interrogation; especially from the likes of Mrs Maudsley (Issy van Randwych) and her spouse, Mr Maudsley (Julian Forsyth) as he has been making an abundant array of disappearances. However, Leo begins to think that he sending these letters may not be such a good idea and that Marian has been vulgarly using Leo’s immaturity and youth as he would not question her motives and he wants to cease all involvement. But Marian pushes him to continue. Throughout the performance, Leo is discovered as the go-between  messenger which ultimately climaxes with horrendous consequences for Ted as he uses his shotgun to shoot himself  in the head so both Leo and Marian have questions to answer. Years and years plod on by and Leo, now an older man returns to Norfolk for what might be the last time where he meets Marian’s grandson who states that Marian indeed married Viscount Tremingham and is a widow and practically near the end of her days so he visits her to say one final goodbye. At the finale, it is obvious that the effect that being a go-between has had to Leo’s mental state and that he has been forced to keep this situation to himself for all those years and not to blab about it all over the place. Wood’s narrative and Taylor’s music and lyrics were pleasing due to the fact that because of Marian’s vindictive nature has actually impacted on a young boys life which is rather bad as he has traumatic scars and the musical numbers were of an acceptable standard too.

One found the performances by the company of, ‘The Go-Between’ to be quite appealing as there was a good balance of the tension of Leo’s childhood through to the scenes with Leo and Marian and the vocals and choreographic sequences were acceptable.  Michael Crawford is reasonable as Leo “Colston”; predominantly how very well cast he was in the role as someone has been forced to revisit a moment that he probably didn’t want to be reminded of, moreover, when it came to seeing his childhood self, it was interesting to see as he was standing behind him and narrate us through the whole plotline.  Johnny Evans-Hutchinson/Luka Green/William Thompson is satisfactory as the young version of, Leo; mainly how we see that as he has a big crush on the lady, Marian where at first of being the go-between he rather likes doing this task, nonetheless, when he realises what he is doing, he shows that he is starting to mature slightly.  Gemma Sutton is conventional as the sneaky vixen, Marian; for example where we see that she has a rather distasteful manner with how she speaks to the young Leo when he says he wants to stop doing her dirty work and she actually does come across vile. Stuart Ward is alright as Marian’s secret lover, Ted; essentially how when he tries to help Leo with his rather bloodied leg suggests that he doesn’t want any repercussions and throughout the show we see that if he remains alive when all is exposed that he may be murdered by the Viscount Tremingham for being her love-interest so he shockingly commits suicide.

Roger Haines’ direction was reputable here as he has been able to convey how Leo’s summer holidays as a child was not exactly the most cherished memories one could have had as an end result for one of those holidays caused someone who was pretty lovely to kill himself all because of a relationship that could not have occurred in reality due to social classes. Michael Pavelka’s design was appropriate as we were taken to the house of Brahdham Hall and its grounds will a sense of panache and this was aided with Tim Lutkin’s dark lighting design and as the set in really static the darkness does help with the whole atmosphere. Overall, the experience of, ‘The Go-Between’ was a fully clad production, then again, it could have been more flawlessly realised as there are elements that were not that outstanding so not perfect all round really.