On the surface, the plot of Gigi sounds promising: A young innocent Girl falls in love with a womaniser and is forced into prostitution by her wicked, immoral and avaricious aunts. Unfortunately the show suffers from English middle classness. It tries to keep it clean. As a result, the songs are coy, the jokes apologetic and the first half is devoid of any conflict right up until the interval when Alicia and Mamita scheme to keep Gigi from Gaston. I want early twentieth century Paris debauchery. I want to see some prostitution and drunken devilry. What we get is tea on an English lawn while painted faces insist that "Paris is Paris Again" and we are all inebriated on champagne in "The Night They Invented Champagne" (belied by the on-stage clacking of plastic champagne cups). Hardly. If only we could have afforded the champagne. In fact, the show would be better if there were no seats and we could sit on the lawn and chat while sipping from a bottle of BYO.
       The set, although slightly unimaginative, is well designed with revolving advertisement pillars which open up to reveal little rooms and backdrops for the different scenes. The costumes are colourful and evoke the "belle époque". The show opens with a well-choreographed but slightly apologetic and afraid of being misconstrued as pedophilia "Thank Heaven for Little Girls". So far, so gay.
       Chaim Topol is fun as Honore, every inch the old roué. But in spite of his charm, the show soon hits a snag in the form of another brilliantly titled song: "It's a bore". Well, they said it. The song bores to the soul, annihilating any enjoyment you may have been experiencing. Even the performers look bored, especially the charmless hero Gaston played by Thomas Borchert, who commits the cardinal theatrical sin of mistaking feeling bored for acting boring. Not for one second did I believe that he was a *bon vivant.* The idea of anyone falling in love with him, let alone committing suicide over him (as one of his girlfriends does) is preposterous. I pity the lovely Lisa O'Hare, struggling to find an ounce of character in her role and a spark of chemistry with her walking-dead co-star. During one song, she asks "Where do I belong?" Good question. What is she doing here? Where is her part? And so it falls to the older characters in the show to add some humanity, which Chaim Topol and Millicent Martin do, touchingly towards the end of the first half in "I remember it well". It is perhaps the only charming moment in the show.The fundamental problem with this production is that there is barely a plot. This is not helped by the long list of pointless songs which interrupt what little action takes place. Yes it's all bright and gay and looks a bit like Paris, but it is nothing like the real thing. Bland.
Ed Glass