Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Musical review – no frights, no thrills … this mashup is a mystery
Alfred Hitchcock had confirmed his place in Hollywood's film-making firmament by the time he launched his anthology of TV stories in 1955. The episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents were half-hour nuggets from his chilling imagination – cautionary tales of adultery, crime and comeuppance, bookended by his own wry commentaries.
The series gripped American and British audiences alike with its killer twists. If only that were the case with this musical homage composed by Steven Lutvak, with a book by Jay Dyer.
Directed by John Doyle, it plays out in a TV studio, complete with giant spotlights and a blockish period camera, roving across a monochrome set, co-designed by Doyle and David L Arsenault, which at least looks the part.
But the master of suspense is missing – and so is the suspense. There is no commentary, only Hitchcock's signature 'Good evening' set to song, before a melange of stories reprise numerous episodes, including Lamb to the Slaughter, in which a police officer's wife (Scarlett Strallen) kills her husband after he says he is divorcing her, and The Woman Who Wanted to Live, about the seduction of a runaway prisoner who holds a character (Jade Oswald) at gunpoint.
There are so many more scenarios thrown in, such as a daughter controlled by her overbearing mother and gay lovers plotting a random murder. The focus does not stay on any of them for long but switches from one story to the next so quickly you lose the thread at times. They are too brief for intrigue to build. Not even the strong singing of Nicola Hughes, who plays a disgruntled lover, or Sally Ann Triplett, as a wild-haired babysitter, can save this production from confusion and cliche.
It looks as if Hitchcock's stories have been put in a blender and are swirling around on stage. These morsels do not amount to much, the twists lack punch and the songs try hard to introduce some psychology but are fairly bland although there is one belter at the end, What Everybody Wants.
It is hard to understand what this musical seeks to do. A jumbled medley of too many of Hitchcock's episodes, it does not have the impact of any one. 'What makes a story work?' the cast sing at the beginning. Not this.
At Theatre Royal Bath until 12 April
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