Just Off The Tottenham Court Road

Glen Chandler is an amiable and undoubtedly talented gentleman with a BAFTA to prove it. I had been hearing about Cleveland Street for quite some time as his next project, a musical based on the infamous Cleveland Street scandal of Victorian England, where it was discovered that telegram boys were being recruited to work in a male brothel. I must say that the concept of a musical doesn’t particularly spring to mind when thinking of brothels. Let’s face it, Best Little Whorehouse In Texas was hardly a great idea.

Quite rightly, Chandler chooses to examine the scandal at several levels particularly the hypocrisy of Victorian values and due to the important names amongst the clientele, the ensuing cover-up of all involved. There is also emotional engagement as we witness a complex web of relationships flounder at the exposure of this disorderly house.

Devereaux’s score rarely rises above fairly predictable music-hall pastiche – a default style for any new musical set between 1814 and 1914 - but many of Chandler’s lyrics are lost to the elision of an enthusiastic cast. There is very little light and shade present in the music and song-points are washed over or completely ignored.

Fiona Russell’s design is a huge improvement on My Beautiful Launderette but could still do with some tweaking and for some reason all the wigs used in the courtroom seen are worn backwards!? Tim McArthur’s direction is perfunctory and the choreography grates against both the period and the space. Unfortunately little of it is achieved with any level of finesse and the lowest common denominator appears to flourish in every scene. Arses are slapped; crotches grabbed and groped; cocks are flashed with gratuitous reliability but the whole thing is boring rather than bawdy.