Summer In The City – Upstairs At The Gatehouse, London

Writer: Jennifer Selway

Director: John Plews

It is August 1965. Budding matriarch Hetty (Helen Goldwyn) owns a Carnaby Street coffee shop. She is a former big band singer, which is handy when you have to give sage advice to budding pop groups (and belt out Petula Clarke’s Downtown). Luckily, should anyone feel the need of it there is a very good five-piece band practising in the venue’s back room. Implausibly chiselled American barista Sam is just about capable of brewing up the shop’s two types of coffee (black or white – this is well before Starbucks). What Sam really wants in his heart of hearts is to be the manager of a groovy girl band. Sam is very taken with sassy young Cassie a fashion student who aches to design costumes for a groovy girl band.

Shop-regulars include Vera (Elizabeth Walker) who comes from Leeds and is a traffic warden, but secretly yearns to be the lead singer of, say, a groovy girl band. Vera has the hots for Liverpool-born photographer Bobby (Harry Curley), which is convenient when you are required to sing Marcie Blane’s hit, I Want To Be Bobby’s Girl. Bobby helpfully tells us he is “not just a thick scouser”. In fact, he knows The Beatles personally and can play a mean guitar, which is valuable when, say, someone wants to put together a groovy girl band. Posh Joanna (Eliza Shea) is a journalist, but boy can she sing, which is beneficial when, imagine this, a groovy girl band needs backing singers.

Yes, there are a fair few convenient coincidences in Summer In The City, this year’s Christmas juke-box musical at Upstairs At The Gatehouse. It is not hard to work out where the thin, bordering on anorexic, narrative is going. The tale of the rise and fall of Vera and The Vixens (they sensibly decide against calling themselves The Ravishing Stones or The Lil-Lets) has the vibe of Cliff Richard’s ‘60s movie vehicle Summer Holiday. One almost expects a double decker bus to rumble in from the B519 as a plot device. Cliff’s movies were famously aimed at audiences in the newly discovered ‘teenager’ and young adult market. The loyal audience for Upstairs At The Gatehouse lie at the other end of the age spectrum, many of whom caught the 1960s first time round, so perhaps keeping the story this accessible is a logical production choice.

Whatever the manifest shortcomings of Jennifer Selway’s plot (it is lost, basically) there is much in the production to enjoy. Curley’s Bobby, fittingly clad in blue and yellow school blazer, plum trousers, and moccasins, steals the show with a solo guitar-led performance of Ferry Cross The Mersey. Shea, all sweptback bleach blond hair and go-go boots, delivers a fantastically smoky rendition of Summer In The City. Candis Butler Jones and Connor Arnold carry Marvin Gaye’s hit It Takes Two like they really mean it; both have memorable voices and charismatic stage presence, particularly the recently graduated Butler Jones. The band is great too, particularly musical director Cutis Lavender’s phenomenal saxophone playing.

Writer Selway manages to inject some fun and knowing humour into the tenuous narrative links between the songs. There is not a single working phone box in the whole of swinging sixties London; gosh, if only someone would invent a mobile phone. Oh, and how great it would be if you could give groovy girl band members their own names, like Posh or Baby.

Summer In The City is production company Ovation’s last ever festive show after a 25-year track record of fringe productions. It is fair to say it is not their best, but the team, led by director John Plews and producer Katie Plews deserve applause and thanks for two and a half decades of achievement. The show’s final tune is a singalong version of Jeff Beck’s Hi Ho Silver Lining. It a suitably catchy song to hum on the way out and a just tribute to a production company that will be missed.

Runs until 15 January 2023