A visitor J. Bowden Hapgood (Jordan Broatch) is mistakenly thought to be a doctor and strikes up a romance with Nurse Apple who has dressed as Colette, a French soubrette in pink wig and boa trimmed negligée and speaks with a funny French accent. Hapgood looks as if he has stepped out of a production of Hair with his psychedelic T shirt with bell bottom sleeves. The colourful costume design by Cory Shipp is lively and fun.
The Cookies are somehow released into the community and when they try to round them up, no-one can find them as they are now sitting in the audience and are unrecognisable!
There are two very good songs which have become a part of the Sondheim cabaret repertoire, “There Won’t Be Trumpets” with its messianic theme satirising “76 Trombones” from the musical, The Music Man, which had completed its three plus years run on Broadway in !961, and is on in 2022. The other song, one of everyday rebellion, is “Everybody says Don’t” from J. Bowden Hapgood.
It is played on a traverse stage with the Southwark audience banked either side. That early musical essential the ballet gets a nod when Baby Joan (Marisha Morgan) has a dance with ballet moves progressing to hip hop. Lisa Stevens is the choreographer of the lively dance.
I especially loved the scene where two French bereted garlic sellers, yes garlic not onions, John (Terry Hinde), and the find of the show, George (Shane Convery) translate for Apple and Hapgood.
Anyone Can Whistle may not be Sondheim’s best work but it is a fun production at Southwark to complete the oeuvre of his musicals seen.