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# REVIEW: Comany @Gielgud Theatre, London
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/review-comany-gielgud-theatre-london/
- Published: 2018-10-21T10:22:00.000Z
- Updated: 2018-10-21T10:22:00.000Z
- Description: In the gender-fluid 20 teens and nearly 50 years on from its original staging, Stephen Sondheim’s iconic Company still shines and astounds.
- Author: Besi

## In the gender-fluid 20 teens and nearly 50 years on from its original staging, Stephen Sondheim’s iconic *Company* still shines and astounds.

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web-600-70.jpg)

**THE front cloth** on stage has an illuminated version of the word *Company* but the letters don’t quite fit together – somehow disconnected and damaged – it’s a stinking metaphor for the whole show and it’s cast of largely dysfunctional characters.

With Sondheim’s blessing, director **Marianne Elliott** has swapped the gender of the lead character so **Bobby** the perennial bachelor now becomes **Bobbie** the highly successful New York woman seeking sex in the city but avoiding a proper relationship.

It’s a switch that works and **Rosalie Craig** has a super soaring voice to carry her through the big numbers like *Marry me a Little* and *Being Alive*. But somehow it’s not just not quite enough. She’s a watcher of other people’s relationships and we don’t really warm to her.

Much easier to appreciate are two stand-out performances. **Jonathan Bailey** as Jamie, the reluctant gay bridegroom pulls the house down with his frenetic, athletic, manic rendition of *I’m Not Getting Married Today*.

And then there’s the queen of Broadway, the incomparable **Patti Lupone** as Joanne – witty, sharp as a boxful of knives, and heart-breakingly honest in her magnificent version of *The Ladies Who Lunch*. She hits its wide open top notes like a sledgehammer. She’s worth the ticket price alone.

It’s an endlessly inventive production with a kind of Alice in Wonderland feel to it, when Bobbie has to squeeze through a tiny door and when the partygoers are crammed on top of her in a sort of weirdly psychedelic cupboard.

The weakness in the show for me is **George Furth’s** book. Some dialogue scenes seem endless and repetitious and you crave for another song to come along. When it does, it’s always like a breath of fresh air and the show has never seemed as new and relevant.

The orchestra, way up on a last form in the flies above the stage sound terrific and the musicians obviously have a good head for heights, under the tight direction of MD **Joel Fram**.

I wonder if the show will ever revert to a male lead or whether this is our Company forever now. No bad thing that.

Company runs at the Gielgud Theatre, London till March 2019.

**Review by Brian Butler.**