ajhlovestheatre

THE FROGS 

A comedy written in 405BC by Aristophanes, freely adapted by Burt Shevelove, even more freely adapted by Nathan Lane

music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim 

directed by Georgie Rankcom 

Southwark Playhouse Borough – The Large, London – until 28 June 2025

running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval 

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/the-frogs/

Originally conceived as an entertainment to be performed in the swimming pool at Yale University (where the original chorus of amphibians included Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver), The Frogs mainly features as a footnote to Stephen Sondheim’s extraordinary career. On the basis of this enthusiastic but exhausting revival by Georgie Rankcom, it’s not hard to see why. 

More of a sort of Ancient Greek vaudeville than a conventional musical, the emphasis is on the comic and the cerebral as the God of wine and drama Dionysus heads off to the underworld to bring back an inspirational playwright (in the original Aristophanes it was Euripides, in Burt Shevelove’s belaboured adaptation it’s George Bernard Shaw) in a bid to save an increasingly messed-up mankind from itself. While it’s kinda comforting to see that people haven’t really changed across the centuries, the anything-for-a-joke style of the writing (and this version is further packed with anachronisms) means that it never feels like anything much is at stake. 

Dan Buckley, a tremendously gifted musical comedy performer, works hard as Dionysus but is compromised by some writing and comic schtick, and gets little chance to show off his glorious voice. At least he has bucket loads of charm; as his sidekick slave Xanthias, American star Kevin McHale, formerly of TV’s Glee, seems to have been given only two playing notes – smug and camp – both of which he strikes relentlessly to nullifying effect. 

Elsewhere, the cast perform various amusing cameos – Martha Pothen as a comic Irish-accented GBS, Carl Patrick’s Charon, lugubrious but manic transporter of the dead Charon, Bart Lambert as a grave Shakespeare, Victoria Scone (one of several guest stars) as fruitily funny Pluto, overseer of Hades – but each feels like talented performers bowling his/her/their individual bit at the audience with no coherence or sense of being part of a bigger whole. Joaquin Pedro Valdes fares best as a genuinely hilarious himbo Herakles, Dionysus’s fitness obsessed half brother.

The score is a stately, witty combination of Broadway-style showtune and portentous grandeur – very well played by Yshani Perinpanayagam’s excellent quintet – but there’s nothing here that approaches vintage Sondheim, save for the engaging ‘Gods of the Theatre’ opening number and a joyfully off-kilter second act paean to the glories of wine. Neither the reasonably enjoyable songs nor the energised commitment of the cast are sufficient to compensate for Shevelove’s book being a colossal bore. The second act, dominated by a boxing match-style quote-off between Shaw and Shakespeare that feels like pulling teeth, is interminable.

The titular frogs, of which Dionysus is inexplicably terrified, appear only once for a single number (good luck with getting that piercing “Brekekekèx” out of your head after seeing this) and are costumed here by Libby Todd as colourful panto-esque figures, looking more like hula dancers crossed with aliens rather than amphibians. The visual aesthetic of Todd’s other costumes and curtained set suggests gaudy on a budget – it’s not particularly exciting but it basically works – with Samuel Biondolillo’s lighting doing a lot of visual heavy-lifting.

Matt Nicholson’s choreography skilfully and strikingly combines a variety of showbiz tropes to ensure that the musical numbers look good. Rankcom’s go-for-broke, wide-swinging directorial style works well enough in individual moments but never coheres into anything distinctive or satisfying, and the broad slapstick feels rootless which mitigates against the humour, and the determination to inject modern high camp at every available opportunity becomes tiresome. The cast is strong but the overall effect is one of self-indulgent mugging and little detail. 

At one point, Dionysus, in his bid to save humanity through theatre, states “we have to appeal to their hearts as well as their minds” and the irony here is that is precisely what The Frogs doesn’t do. It’s a show very much up in its own head, and without any human warmth to cling on to, it becomes tedious. It’s a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster of a show, having been reworked and expanded several times, but the lack of real engagement and purpose starts to really register across a playing time of over two hours (the original was a fleet one act). A 2017 revival at Jermyn Street at least invested it with a little charm but this version, stuck between satire and would-be lavish musical, feels mainly brash yet ponderous. One for Sondheim completists only.