A Little Night Music

I spotted director Trevor Nunn writing furiously in the row in front of me at the Menier Chocolate Factory, compiling an avalanche of notes for his cast.  But I really can't see why he bothered -- it all seemed absolutely perfect to me.  I had never seen Sondheim's masterwork before, and I don't know much about musical theatre, but this production, still in previews, is going to be hard to improve.  The inevitable yardstick for most critics will be the Menier's production of Sunday In The Park With George two years ago, which swept the board at the Olivier awards.  To my great regret, I never saw it though I was at the award ceremony where the Menier's success left the Spamalot team with their noses out of joint.  A director with as many musicals under his belt as Trevor Nunn doesn't have much left to prove, though this is his first crack at Sondheim.  And he may be keen to wipe out any unhappy memories of his last production, Gone With The Wind.  In the programme Nunn says it's the first time he has done a musical in such a small space, and praises the Menier's 'enviable and total intimacy'.  A theatre with around 150 seats seems just right for this show and it's fantastic for the audience to hear the show without the cast using microphones.  What a cast!  Hannah Waddingham is just delightful as the ultra-glamorous actress Desiree Armfeldt, and hits all the right heart-rending notes when she sings 'Send in the clowns'.  She's well matched by Alexander Hanson as her lawyer lover, Jessie Buckley as the lawyer's 18-year-old virgin wife, and Kelly Price as the abandoned Countess Charlotte.  The principals are framed by Desiree's mother, wonderfully played by Maureen Lipman, and her daughter Fredrika, in an amazingly confident performance by young Grace Link, who seems to have been acting for years and years although the programme says she only began when she was eight. I would guess she's about 11, so she can look forward to playing Desiree in 30 years time and Desiree's mother in 60 years time.   I was so riveted by this show that I wasn't even distracted by the offer of a neck massage from the West End Whinger in the seat behind me.  No doubt it (the show, not the neck massage) will deservedly transfer to the West End trailing five stars in all directions, and Trevor Nunn will deservedly become even more famous than he is already.