A Musical Thriller
As I entered the auditorium I had just one hope for The Third Man, that there would be a zither playing the Harry Lime Theme in the soundtrack, writes Michael Holland.
Holly Martins arrives in war-torn Vienna to meet up with old friend Harry Lime, but finds himself in a bombed and broken city that is trying to survive in its own ‘black market hell’. Lime, however, has met with an untimely demise and Martins is directed to his funeral.
He asks around for details of his friend’s sudden death but none of the witnesses’ stories seem to add up, making Martins very suspicious. Lime’s girlfriend, Anna, is fraught, while the local police are happy to be rid of him, telling Holly that Lime was dealing in stolen penicillin that he sold to the hospitals for an exorbitant price while also diluting the contraband to double his illegal income. Children were dying from the watered-down medicine.
Holly needed to get to the bottom of this mystery to redeem the memory of his dear friend but the deeper he delves the more he finds that Lime was in fact a scumbag getting rich off the misery of others. Everyone he talks to seems to be mired in the skulduggery. His loyalties change.
The 1949 film noir is always high on the list of greatest films for its cinematography, where the camera was set to throw long shadows down the seedy back alleys and sewers beneath a city where the black marketeers would cross between the American, British and Russian sectors of Vienna, carrying their illicit wares. This style is recreated in the Menier where Emma Chapman’s lighting and Paul Farnsworth’s set design combination respectfully recreates the film’s B&W noir. It allows for chases and getaways along starkly-lit streets. We’d see the iconic shadows of the flowing overcoats and Fedora-wearing protagonists on the walls before they reached the stage. Some of the debris that littered the set was cleverly utilised to form the Mozart Café, the Casanova Club and all other scenes.
From such an auspicious film it was important to get this play right, and with Don Black and Christopher Hampton on book and lyrics, and George Fenton writing the music, you have three thoroughbreds of musical theatre. Add in Trevor Nunn to direct and you have yourself a Dream Team who brought all the suspense you need for a thriller to thrill.
The songs, though, became a distraction when they weren’t pushing the story on, and some seemed utterly irrelevant, although the one sung by Anna Schmidt(Natalie Dunne) about having two men in her life, Paul and Klaus, was fun but hit an odd comedic note when her real lover was recently killed and freshly buried… But that is a minor detail in this version of a classic that does exactly what you want from The Third Man.
The first act ended with a zither playing the Harry Lime theme, and Act 2 was where the real intrigue began to sort itself out, where the pace quickens and the tension rises. So, other than the dodginess of Harry Lime’s best friend Holly Martins trying to pull Lime’s girlfriend before the corpse got cold, I had a great night.
Menier Chocolate Factory, 53 Southwark Street, London, SE1 1RU until 3rd September. Times: Tues – Sat 7.30pm; weekend matinees 3pm. Admission: £45 – £55. Booking: 0207 378 1713 – www.menierchocolatefactory.com
