The most terrifying grin in showbusiness
(Filed: 10/11/2005, Daily Telegraph)
Charles Spencer reviews 'Scrooge' at the London Palladium
The London Palladium is the theatre Tommy Steele calls home. With 1,767 performances under his belt, he has starred there more often than any other artist, an achievement recorded by a grateful management with a plaque.
If showbiz gossip is to be believed, however, those who worked with Steele on his hit Palladium production of Singin' in the Rain accorded him an honour of a different kind.
So popular was he with the backstage crew that they would regularly urinate into the water tanks that were to rain down on to Steele's head during his performance of the show's title number. I fear this review is about to perform the verbal equivalent.
Though Steele is almost invariably described as a "much-loved entertainer", I have never met anyone (with the exception of this show's producer, Bill Kenwright) who admits to liking him, let alone loving him.
Doubtless blameless in his private life, he comes over on the stage as the most obnoxious ego-tripper, basking luxuriantly in the glory of an extremely modest talent which doesn't extend much beyond an OK singing voice and an irritatingly chirpy charm.
Actually, chirpy charm isn't the first quality one associates with Scrooge and it initially looks as though Steele is going to break the habit of a lifetime and try to do some acting for once.
At 68, he is certainly beginning to look the part of the old miser, with his leathery tortoise face, dismayingly lank mullet haircut and arthritic walk, and in the first scene he scowls and growls and snorts "Bah Humbug!" with something approaching conviction.
But you know it can't last, and it doesn't. The character's terror as the ghosts appear is played for laughs, rather than the thrilling horror of Dickens's original story, and before long the people's star is treating us to comic capers and his Bermondsey lad's version of an allegedly posh voice, which Steele clearly finds a hoot even if no one else does.
This Scrooge proves quite nauseatingly sentimental, and when he finally discovers the milk of human kindness - just as my own was curdling – Steele starts flashing that dazzlingly insincere smile at us, the one thing about Bob Tomson's anodyne production that is certain to give the children in the audience nightmares.
It's a grin that is mechanically switched on and off like the lighthouse on Portland Bill, picking up the follow spots and sending shafts of brilliant white light right up into the murkiest corners of the upper circle. There is no more terrifying sight in showbiz. "Love me! Love me! Love me!", it silently screams. "Tell me I'm a star." And sure enough the audience rewards him, as Tommy Steele's audiences always do, with a standing ovation. There is nothing the British love more than the second-rate.
I don't seem to have left much room for the rest of the production, but then Steele's stage-hogging performance doesn't either, and the rest of the large, well-drilled cast barely get a look in.
The show conjures up a cosy, chocolate-box vision of Victorian poverty. There are some half-way decent illusions by Paul Kieve, and Leslie Bricusse's cheap and cheerful score proves largely inoffensive.
No, this production's sole raison d'être is the presence of Tommy Steele. He is also the reason why anyone who cherishes style, talent and taste should give it a very wide berth indeed.
