Half A Sixpence

Published Wednesday 5 September 2007 at 12:25 by James Green

Appropriately this touring production opens at Bromley only yards from where HG Wells was born, went to school, and his father had a drapery shop.

Wells wrote Kipps - The Story of a Simple Soul a century ago and this musical version set in Edwardian Folkestone is partly based on his own life.

Originally staged in the West End in 1963, it later became a film (think Tommy Steele). Now the script has been re-worked and a few new songs added - notably Warner Brown’s show-stopping belter What Should I Feel?

Song-and-dance man Gary Wilmot not only risks a blood vessel performing this number but carries the show throughout. As narrator, eye-catching solo or group dancer, and happy-go-lucky singer, he is a natural for the role of Arthur Kipps.

Also lucky that he can just slip under the age barrier cast as a young romantic. At times with straw hat, cane and buck-and-wing, he might have been paying tribute to Frankie Vaughan. Which is quite a compliment.

The heart of the story is the English class system of the early 20th century and how, with money, the lower class could transfer to the “la-di-dah” gentry. Spending his early years as an orphan, Kipps moves into society after inheriting a £1,200-a-year fortune. Which means he forgets his first love, Ann, another orphan, with whom he has filed a sixpence and given her half as a love token.

Claire Marlowe plays Ann and sings with a bell-like voice that is clear and clean. Songs like Flash, Bang, Wallop, In The Cause of Economy, and Half A Sixpence are warmly greeted, and the entire cast are excellent - with a special commendation for David Delve as the over-the-top “actor laddie” playwright.