"Wait A Minim” Show Is Everyone’s Champagne

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31781, 11 September 1968, Page 18

"Wait A Minim” Show Is Everyone’s Champagne

“Walt a Minim,” devised and directed by Leon Gluckman. Theatre Royal.

Apart from some indecision on the double respiratory lingaphone, faulty intonation on the Umakhweyana bow, and the absence of any Balinese war chants, one feels, after the first few minutes, that this show is too good to last

In fact, not until after two hours and a half of non-stop singing, dancing, clowning, gagging, and exuberance did the cast of apparent thousands (all eight of them) appear to run out of steam. Many of the best giggles

went right over the heads of the audience, who were still convulsed from the previous show-stopper. Most of the visual gags were, indeed, sufficiently hilarious for the company to have allowed a decent interval before proceeding. As it was, the production moved like a demonstration of chain re-action.

In spite of the fact that more than 108 different instruments were played during the evening, there was nothing that could be called symphonic. And although we were taken on a comic musical pilgrimage through Africa, the West Indies, Japan, Scotland, Italy, France, and- medieval England, one can think of several mid-European countries whose folk music was quite ignored.

The staging can only be described as unstable. Screens moved across, curtain moved up, lights came off and on, colours surged and blended, and the cast 'appeared from absolutely anywhere—at any time.

The musical arrangements of familiar songs such as “I Know Where I’m Going” and “Hammer Song” left one feeling aghast at how different they were from the usual versions. Andrew Tracey admits responsibility. It just goes to show how much beautiful, arresting, swinging music does not make the Top Ten. It would seem that modemmethod acting has not yet reached South Africa, since by the end of the evening—even though each man had in his time played many parts—one felt that one knew quite intimately the personalities, extrovert as they excitingly were, of each member of the cast.

This show will, unfortunately, have such an impact on the people of Christchurch that we are bound to have pale imitations for years to come (Students’ Revue, 1969?). In fact, any group which can assemble a powerful male quartet capable of singing everything from grand opera to tribal folk song, a dancer who can alternate between a tribal dance group and the Royal Ballet, a mime who can fill in for Marcel Marceau, and a team of revue artists who can put the Cambridge Circus out of business, will be mounting shows called “Wait a Demi-semi Quiver" and the like. It is suggested you don’t wait for these, but go quickly to “Wait A Minim." It is too good to last. We will be lucky to have such extraordinary talent as long as we have. This show is certainly everyone’s cup of champagne. Bravo, bravo, encore. —P.R.S.