The Stage

The Full Monty

Published Monday 7 December 2009 at 13:00 by Mark Shenton

While one modern British film classic, Billy Elliot, has held on to its specific industrial origins in its translation to stage musical to become an ongoing West End and Broadway hit, an earlier one that also looks at the human consequences of the wholesale dismantling of a local industry in The Full Monty saw its locale switched from Sheffield to Buffalo, NY, as it made its way to the Broadway musical stage.

A scene from The Full Monty at the New Players Theatre

Perhaps that’s why, when it came back to the London stage in 2002, it was a fast flop. But seeing it again in a new, skilfully pared-down production that has transferred from Catford’s tiny Broadway Studio to the New Players Theatre, the show may have acquired a new American accent (and accents), but it has fully retained its heart.

That’s buoyantly expressed in David Yazbeck’s funny, thoughtful musical numbers, that include a great one when Jerry and Dave, two best friends laid off from their jobs as steelworkers, discover another former colleague trying to gas himself in his car and discuss alternative ways to help him to commit suicide in Big-Ass Rock, or Dave’s hilarious solo number, addressed to his belly, You Rule My World.

Thom Southerland’s production keeps the spirit and momentum of the piece at an unflagging pace, even as the men’s own expressions of those qualities regularly fade. They are each also given tremendous individuality and vitality by a cast that features Adam Bayjou and Peter St James as the pivotal best friends, but the entire troupe packs a strong punch, including Robert Rees and Gareth Nash as another couple who find a surprising kinship with each other that Terrence McNally’s book mines for particular pathos.

The result is a musical that is affecting as it is effective, and provides a wonderfully adult Christmas alternative to panto.