Review | Half a Sixpence at London's Noel Coward Theatre

The ace up the sleeve of this revival of the Tommy Steele-starrer from the ’60s is a young man named Charlie Stemp. Having only been in a Mamma Mia! tour and the Wicked ensemble, the 22-year-old from Peckham steps into the spotlight as a charming, confident, charismatic leading man for whom the phrase “a star is born” could have been invented.

Written as a vehicle for teen idol Steele to star in on both sides of the Atlantic, and eventually on screen too, the show is based on the HG Wells novel Kipps, and is all about a cockney orphan who inherits a small fortune and finds himself torn between the simple things and his fancy new lifestyle, not to mention two girls from contrasting social classes.

That’s your lot plotwise, and the new version, which premiered in Chichester in the summer, has a new script by Julian Fellowes that drags things out a bit – especially in the bloated, bladder-straining first half. But Stemp livens every scene he’s in and in act two the pace quickens and there are a couple of big song and dance numbers – Pick Out A Simple Tune, which Stiles and Drewe wrote specially for the revival, and Flash Bang Wallop, the original show’s big showstopper – that really raise the roof.

Cameron Mackintosh, who is producing the new version, has hailed Charlie as the best new star since Michael Crawford and he’s not wrong. It helps that Stemp is a handsome chap with a great cor-blimey smile, but it’s his deftness at physical comedy and his skilled dancing feet that make him such a wonderful all-rounder. You can be sure he’ll be strutting his stuff for a long time to come.

Rating: 4/5

Half A Sixpence is at the Noel Coward Theatre, London. For tickets click here.

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Words: Simon Button

Review | Half a Sixpence at London’s Noel Coward Theatre

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