Book: Rachel Wagstaff
Music and Lyrics: Richard Taylor
Director: Bronagh Lagan
American novelist Paul Gallico created the character of Battersea charwoman Ada Harris for his 1958 novel Mrs ’Arris Goes to Paris and its three sequels. Under the novel’s British title Flowers for Mrs. Harris, Richard Taylor and Rachel Wagstaff’s musical debuted in 2016 at Sheffield Theatres, with director Daniel Evans reviving his own production in 2018 after he transferred to Chichester.
This new production of the musical is its London debut, and while the Riverside Studios may not be able to offer the scale of a West End staging, this is compensated for in the central performance of Jenna Russell as Ada, who delivers a characteristically warm and precise performance.
That’s just as well, for if you look too closely at the story it risks condescension of the British working classes. Both Ada and her best friend Violet (Anne Wensak) are charwomen whose entire lives are spent cleaning up after their middle-class clients. Ada’s sole personal time is spent cross-stitching, or supping half a pint of milk stout in the local pub once a week, and has not had a holiday in over 30 years.
Her horizons are changed when she finds a couture Christian Dior gown hanging in the wardrobe of a client (Kelly Price’s Lady Dant). Ada begins to dream of owning her own Dior – the notion of which is regarded as preposterous by many, not least Violet, who sees her friend’s dream as a betrayal of their life.
Wagstaff’s book, which often merges seamlessly with Taylor’s music and lyrics, documents how Mrs Harris spends years saving the money, by working harder than ever to supplement the slight pools win that makes her believe she can fulfil her dream. If the working classes must have dreams, Gallico’s story tells us, then they can achieve them through a greater commitment to serfdom.
What saves the story is Ada’s, and in particular Russell’s, optimism. While that also risks perpetuating another stereotype, that of the cheery Cockney worker, here it is mollified by an air of sadness, Ada still grieving for her dead husband Albert (Hal Fowler), whose ghost is encouraging her to do something for herself for once. The rounded nature of Russell’s character means that the salt-of-the-earth nature of her dealings with clients – from Charlotte Kennedy’s flighty, self-absorbed actress to Nathanael Campbell’s accountant with a dream of becoming a photographer – charms rather than grates. If London’s upper classes ignore the humanity beaming out of their charlady, it is their loss, especially if that cleaner is Ada Harris.
The work to save enough to send Mrs. Harris to Paris takes up the entirety of the first act, but it is Ada’s two days at Dior that form the more substantial portion of the musical, both narratively and emotionally. Initially ridiculed and belittled, Ada’s determination and kindness win through, and she is allowed to sit in on a preview of some new gowns.
Initially, it feels as if Nik Corrall’s disjoint set – a collection of distressed doors and broken walls, suggesting the remnants of a still bombed-out London – will work against any attempt to portray the elevated haute couture of the Parisian fashion houses. In the end, though, the mock Dior gowns (Sara Perks’s costume design supplemented by Lez Brotherston’s creations for the Sheffield and Chichester productions) feel elevated against the muted backdrop.
Some clever doubling of roles provides easy parallels between Ada’s home life and the characters she meets in Paris, especially with Kennedy and Campbell providing a more satisfying reflection of stilted love than their London counterparts.
But it is always Russell who draws attention. That combination of kindness, steely determination, and rivulets of sadness at the heart of Ada’s personality is this production’s magic touch. This is not the sort of musical to have standout performance numbers, a rare exception being Act I’s Rain On Me, nominally a duet with Fowler but really a masterclass in acting through song from Russell.
And it is that performance which ensures that the musical transcends any concerns about its portrayal of the class divide in both British and French society. Sometimes a stereotypical base is fertile soil for something stronger, more powerful and beautiful to bloom.
Even though one may not leave Flowers for Mrs. Harris humming the tunes, it will be impossible to leave without a warm glow in the heart. Ada Harris has that effect on people, but so too does Jenna Russell. She, and the musical, are blooming marvellous.
Continues until 25 November 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Blooming marvellous
