Music: Dylan Schlosberg
Book and Lyrics: Michael Conley
Director: Charlotte Westenra
Indecent Proposal was one of the most defining movies in the 1990s. With a storyline that centres on a billionaire who offers a woman one million dollars to sleep with him, Adrian Lyne’s film was lushly overblown, and luridly over-directed which captured perfectly the excesses of the period. Southwark Playhouse’s new musical version is its opposite: under-directed and strangely down-at-heel.
Taking their inspiration from the novel by Jack Engelhard rather than the film, Dylan Schlosberg and Michael Conley set their musical in the dingy clubs and casinos of Atlantic City in the 1980s. Other recent musical adaptions of movies like Back to the Future look back knowingly at the past, winking at the audience at every opportunity, but there is no similar irony in Indecent Proposal, which is played straight with only a few glimmers of humour.
Norman Bowman plays Jonny, a club-singer who has to play multiple venues each night just to make a living. Lizzy Connolly plays Rebecca his wife, who works long hours in the marketing department in one of the casinos in order that she can spend time at the charity she has set up helping women find work. One day a rich man Larry, played by Ako Mitchell, says he will give the couple a million dollars to spend one night with Rebecca. They could certainly do with the money.
It’s a thin plot, and the action is glacial, especially in the second half where nothing much happens at all. The characters are mainly unlikeable with Jonny being so uncharismatic that it’s not quite clear why Rebecca stays with him. Mitchell’s Larry fares a little better, but he’s not as persuasive or as dangerous as Robert Redford was in the film. We learn very little of Larry except that he can sing.
Best of all is Jacqeline Dankworth who plays Annie, another club singer. She may be a peripheral character but she gets the best songs and the few jokes. Dankworth is not subtle, but is eminently more watchable than the dreary couple and their creepy benefactor. When she sings Will You Remember the musical comes to life, but only for the duration of the track. The rest of the songs are forgettable MOR rock-lite numbers delivered scratchily by Bowman, and in one odd directorial decision Connolly is required to sing most of a song into a pillow.
There’s little discussion about the morality of Larry’s offer, and even less examination of the politics of sex work. It may take more than a million dollars to be persuaded to sit through this turgid musical again.
Runs until 27 November 2021
The Reviews Hub Score
Pointless adaptation
