The Sting

Well, if that swell-looking old dame hasn’t got herself all dolled up! Sorry – but getting carried away with that psuedo-1930s Chicago gangster talk is inevitable after watching this show: a new play by David Rogers, based on the Oscar-winning 1973 film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

The dame is Wilton’s of course – our finest surviving example of a grand Victorian music hall – and it is indeed looking swell. The theatre has just reopened following an extensive refurbishment project that has, we’re told, finally shored it up against damp, subsidence and other structural nasties. And it looks great: same crumbling brick and unsurpassable historic atmosphere; better toilets, a nicer bar, more rooms to explore.

‘The Sting’ is a fun show to re-open with – a great Hollywood caper movie whose pedigree can be traced right down to films like ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and ‘American Hustle’. Its affectionate, knowingly clichéd setting – all plumed showgirls, trenchcoated cops and gangsters in trilby hats – recalls that of ‘Bugsy Malone’, made three years later. And its plot – two smooth-talking ‘grifters’, Gondorff (Bob Cryer), and Hooker (Ross Forder), and their allies attempt to con big-time hoodlum Doyle Lonnegan (John Chancer) – offers as many twists and turns as a Chicago dime-a-dancer.

So it’s a shame that the production, directed and designed by Peter Joucla, never quite flies. There are some strong performances, but others are uneven, with wildly wavering accents, and it proves difficult to keep track of the slippery, serpentine plot. Still, with immersive pre-show shenanigans and live jazz in the bar, this is still a darn fine night out, kid.