Prepare to be surprised. The latest, literally explosive, musical being staged at Chichester Festival Theatre is a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, a satirical look at the history of those Americans who, over the past 200 years, have attempted to assassinate their president, some more successfully than others.
But put like this the production, which is up to the very high standards we have come to expect at Chichester, sounds mundane; it is anything but.
It all begins before it begins. As you take your seat you find yourself in the middle of an American presidential convention with larger than life characters and blaring music getting the slightly bemused audience doing a series of Mexican waves even before the curtain has gone up.
And the fun (if that is the right word) continues, but this is fun with an edge, a very nasty edge. For while this is a musical with some great songs and involves a large slice of history is a biting condemnation of America’s obsession with the gun: “Move your little finger and you can change the world” is the chorus of The Gun Song which sums up Sondheim’s bleak message.
A scene from Assassins
The characters portrayed include nine actual or would-be presidential assassins – who knew there were so many?
It ends with a powerful sequence in which the last in the line, Lee Harvey Oswald, gives an almost sympathetic insight into why assassins become assassins.
This is an exciting production with a strong cast, great music and all put together brilliantly by director Polly Findlay but don’t take my word for it, go and see for yourself.
Assassins runs until June 24.
Ivor Gaber
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