Louisa May Alcott’s tale of four sisters trying to avoid poverty, disobedience and – in some cases – love while their father fights in the US Civil War doesn’t obviously lend itself to a musical treatment.
But Peter Layton’s book guards the essence of Alcott’s novel and Lionel Segal has a very welcome light touch with the music and lyrics, although even he can’t prevent a slide into sentimentality towards the end: ‘Little Women’, after all, is as American as apple pie and that nation likes its desserts sugared.
But as well as Beth’s kindness and big sister Meg’s rectitude, the play has little Amy’s charming wilfulness and tomboy Jo’s feisty naiveté, and while Charlotte Newton John as Jo – writer and adventuress manquée, at least during the time-frame of this story – is the stand-out, the sweetly harmonising voices of all four girls say more about family concord than a passel of words could.
Only the men let the show down – but then, not that much has changed since Alcott’s time.