Cable Street - Southwark Playhouse

It'll be interesting to find out what 'featuring a contemporary score' means. Presumably they mean contemporary to now, not 1930s. It's been a long while since a 'cockney musical' worked, and avoiding the 'Lord luv a duck' cliches sounds like a good move. Will be interesting to see if there's a 'now' frame that explains the music being contemporary, or if it just ....is; because it's been written 'now'.

Run is completely sold out. Certainly not used to that for shows at Southwark Playhouse.

Id guess based on its success so far, itll be moved to the larger Elephant and Castle venue later this year. Definitely a demand for it

Relatively small venue and people really like the concept i guess!

It has quite a specific target audience, which I think has guaranteed it selling well/out.

Has anyone seen this yet?

Correct and I was in it! Just wondering what people's thoughts on it were!

LOL ^ 🫖

Saw this tonight and very much enjoyed it.

The second half (which has more developed and involving characterisation and more rousing songs) is better than the first half, which is more setting the scene, and has more nondescript songs.

Part of setting the scene involves depicting a lot of unpleasant (but necessary) antisemitism, so if you're squeamish about that, beware.

There are multiple song styles, some of which hit harder than others, with the rapping never hitting the heights its aiming for.

The wonderful Debbie Chazen is underused (as is Jade Johnson, who sounds great), and doesn't get a proper character, which is a bit of a shame.

Among a strong ensemble, who sound great together, Danny Colligan is a standout in a difficult main role, and Jez Unwin is terrific in support.

Some spoilers follow. . .

There have been lots of movies about Titanic, but the reason the James Cameron one is loved by audiences is that fictional DiCaprio-Winslet relationship, smack in the middle of it, as well as the drama they have with Billy Zane.

Here, we usefully get the Titanic formula applied to the Battle of Cable Street, whereby Joshua Ginsberg's super-charming East End Jewish boy, Sammy meets Sha Dessi's Irish communist agitator, Mairead, and they both team up to oppose the British Union of Fascists's plan to waltz through Cable Street, protected by the police, while Danny Colligan's hopeless jobless impressionable English local boy, Ron, starts to get seduced by the Fascists (uh oh). . .

Anyhow, the plot cleverly does not stop with the eponymous battle, and looks beyond it usefully.

Pretty much the entire ensemble, bar the above named characters, play multiple roles of all sorts, including Fascists, which means two things: (1) no actor is typecast as an armband-wearing Fascist, which suggests (2) that anybody could be susceptible to Fascist ideas given the right circumstances. Mosley himself is never depicted, never given oxygen, rather it is the susceptibility of ordinary people to the manipulations of xenophobia, ancient hatreds, and a certain form of virulent Nationalism (eg "British jobs for British people") that is under the microscope.

Thematically then, Danny Colligan's Ron is pivotal, and in the second half, he gets a really powerful song, "Shut Me Out," (I'm guessing song titles) where Colligan's impassioned soulful rendition of the song, moved me, and was a highlight, despite his character's villainy.

As the heroic plucky lead character, Sammy, Ginsberg heroically delivers Lin Manuel Miranda levels of likeable energetic rhyming, but is let down by no memorable tunes following the raps.

Sha Dessi is luckier in the song stakes, and her heroine makes like an anti-Marie Antoinette with an awesome delivery of a song that might be called "Bread."

As Sammy's father, who pushes Sammy not to get involved in the Cable Street battle, Jez Unwin delivers so tenderly one of the most moving songs of the piece, "Words," in which he expresses his respect for rationality, as well as his pained disconnect with his son.

There are quite a few forgettable numbers, unfortunately, in the first half, with the notable exception of the brilliant choral ensemble song, "No Passeran, Thou Shall not Pass."

Debbie Chazen is cheated out of any great solos, though I loved her Jaws-reminiscent line delivery, where instead of needing a "bigger boat," she rather needed a "bigger rolling pin."

The Hitler supporting Daily Mail gets it's much deserved and due comeuppance in a much reprised song, "Read all about it," which makes me look forward to their review lol.

I felt that the first half was an average 3 stars, with too much history, not enough story, too few bangers, whereas the second half was a moving 4 stars, with more story, the right amount of history, and almost every song a banger.

3 and a half stars from me, which could improve with book and song edits.

PS: Running time was as advertised, beginning 5 minutes late at 7:35pm and ending 5 minutes late, at 10:05pm, with one interval.

Mainly 4/5 stars in the papers for this

I grew up just off Cable Stree in the 1960s and 70s. I come from an Irish Catholic family who came over in the late 1930s to work at the Ford car factory in Dagenham and became very involved in trade union activism (my aunt was one of the women who struck for equal pay and every so often archival footage of her turns up on TV). My dad left Fords to become a burglar alarm mechanic and his patch was the then very Jewish Whitechapel with its fabric wholesalers and jewellers. I grew up going out with my dad on his rounds and was possibly the only Catholic girl in Stepney who had a set of honorary Jewish uncles. My mum had, as a girl, lit many Sabbath fires for Jewish people for whom that was forbidden. Even in the 1970s the events in Cable Street were starting to be celebrated. So this should be right up my street (quite literally!) But the trailer is giving me Lionel Bart Blitz! vibes, which is not a good thing. If it goes on to a new life I will chance it as the Mark Lawson review suggests it moves on from 'Mockney', but I will steel myself for the bits that are pure 'diamond geezer'.

Thanks max. One of my great regrets is that I never recorded my maternal grandad who died aged 100 in 1992 and was a lifelong Eastender. He had spent most of his adult life - after years in the Merchant Navy - as a street trader in Club Row - initally dealing in caged birds (his Bethnal Green flat was full of them) and once that became illegal in TV's which he reconditioned for sale (causing many fires in his flat in the process). He had an almost Edwardian turn of phrase saying, for example, 'presently' rather than 'later'. I spent a lot of time caring for him in his dying days and so had ample opportunity to whip out a tape recorder but never did. I know precisely what you mean about Wesker and Kops (so sad to read of the latter's death last week). Another good example of that accent was the late, lamented historian of the East End Bill Fishman who was wonderfully encouraging to me when I was a politics PhD student. I was always more of a smoked salmon beigel fan than salt beef but I still miss Blooms whenever I am in Whitechapel! I will definitely try to see this production if it gets a new life.

I enjoyed this a lot. I found the music overall to be very good (a rarity in a lot of new musicals sadly) and it felt cohesive even though there were several different styles. I really liked the story and agree with Steve's comparison to Titanic, you have some interesting characters here and all their stories are woven in very well into what happened on Cable Street. It also has the opposite of what many musicals struggle with, act two is unquestionably stronger with some really great numbers - it is the first act which needs some tweaks. I found some elements similar to shows like In the Heights and Paradise Square, in the essence of it is a story of the community.

I actually thought the show felt too "big" for Southwark Playhouse. This is the sort of show that with some work, and a visionary director, could look absolutely stunning in a bigger house, and could justify a cast of 20+ actors. I'd be curious how it might have looked had somewhere like the Almeida or Old Vic taken it on. I hope this show sees a future life.