Stiletto - book by Tim Luscombe, music & lyrics by Matthew Wilder. Charing Cross Theatre,The Arches, Villiers Street, London WC2N until 15 June 2025, 2☆☆. Review: William Russell.
Photo Credit: Johan Persson.
Stiletto - book by Tim Luscombe, music & lyrics by Matthew Wilder. Charing Cross Theatre,The Arches, Villiers Street, London WC2N until 15 June 2025,
2☆☆. Review: William Russell.
“Dismal, dire, dreadful.”
The cast can certainly sing, some of them can even act, the orchestra is good and even includes a harp, while the costumes are costly and the set handsome until they turn the lights up when it seems they ran out of paint, but given the antecedents of the creators of Stiletto, a fantasy about the life of an 18Century Castrato in Venice, one might have expected to get something worth singing and a story worth tellling. rather than this dire and dismal show. It is 1731 and Marco Borroni (Jack Chambers) has fallen out with his teacher and lover Faustino Conti (Greg Barnett) after finally getting a chance to sing at the Sam Moise opera house and acquiring a new patron Contessa Azura D'Orozco (Kelly Hampson). He is, however, not welcomed by her husbamd Piero (Douglas Hansell) who is engaged in a building scam on rich Venetians with his lover and accountant Luigi and he displays a remarkable lack of common sense after meeting Gioia (Jewelle Hutchinson) a who has a beautiful voice who he takes along to the Contessa for an audition, One thing leads to another, there is a scene, and the Cardinal, of Venice who is also gay, finds himself propelled in the brouhaha onto a stiletto which Gioia has somehow or other had thrust into her hands. She is charged with murder and sentenced to be hung. How can Marco save her? Well that young fellow castrato stricken dumb in an accident who has had nothing to do except cast loving glances his way all evening comes to the rescue. He speaks. Actually he gets an aria as you do.
Jack Chambers has a pleasant enough tenor voice but he cannot sing like a castrato, and he certainly does not look like one, so when he is rquired to appear at the opera house on he comes a masked goddess. Actually he doesn't come on. Jennie Jacobs billed as Mezzo Soprano does and sings his aria for him very nicely indeed. Given that the fringe theatre musical orld is full of young men who can sing falsetto rather well it is an odd casting decision. Tim Luscombe's book is a mess with characters behaving stupidly for no good reason and a denoument which is laughable, while Matthew Wilder's score might have paid some homage to the composers of the time rather than endless Les Miserables type arias which would not have been heard anywhere in the Serenissima in 1731. But on the plus side at least we don't get a gondola scene for Marco and Gioia in which to proclaim their love. The Charing Cross theatre has been home to some rather good musicals in its time but this dismal dire and dreadful show is not one of them.
Cast
Jack Chambers – Marco Borroni
Greg Barnett – Faustino Conti
CJewelle Hutchinson – Gioia
Kelly Hampson – Azurra D'Orozco
Douglas Hansell – Pietro D'Orozco.#Sam Barrett – Luigi
Jennie Jacobs – Mezzo Soprano
Alex Anstey – Don Ricci
Aiden Carson, Richard Dawes, Grace Galloway, Owen Johnston, Cassandra McCowan, Sienna Widd, Hannah Murdoch, Samuel John Taylor – Ensemble
Creatives
Director – David Gilmore.
Orchestrations – Simon Nathan.
Musical Direction – Jae Alexander.
Set Designer - Ceci Calf.
Costume Designer – Anna Kelsey.
Lighting Designer – Ben Ormerod.
Sound Designer – Andrew Johnson.
Theatre, musical 29 March 2025
