How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying review: Gender-blind casting in a sparkling satire of big business

There’s a school of thought that states shows written in other eras with outdated attitudes should be left to rot. I don’t agree. We behave better in the present when we learn about bad behaviour from the past. And How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is hardly the odious, misogynistic musical theatre relic some reviewers of Georgie Rankcom’s revival at Southwark Playhouse have made it out to be.

Originally staged in 1961, it’s a sparkling satire of big business that also satirises the men who abuse their power within it. When they sing ‘It Secretary Is Not a Toy’ the joke’s on them. When they lust after one such secretary named Hedy LaRue (Annie Aitken channelling Betty Boop via Karen from Will and Grace) they come across as hopeless leches. And we all know that sexism in the workplace still goes on, though thankfully it’s less tolerated now than it was six decades ago.

Rankcom, who last year directed a spiffing new version of Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle, writes in the programme: “I knew we had to make clear that the behaviour of these characters was very deliberately a comment on, rather than an endorsement of, the ideals of the past.” This is achieved mainly through the distancing device of having the two main he/hims played by she/her performers, without the genders of the characters themselves being switched.

“Gabrielle Friedman is a sparky J. Pierrepont Finch”

Gabrielle Friedman is a sparky J. Pierrepont Finch, the window washer who applies for a job at the World Wide Wicket Company. Armed with a “How To Succeed” book (unmistakably voiced by a prerecorded Michelle Visage), he climbs the corporate ladder from mail room worker to junior executive and eventually vice-president of advertising. He’s helped by company boss J. B. Biggley – an unfaithful cad who Tracie Bennett plays with gruff befuddlement and her well-known impeccable comic timing.

Finch is also cheered on by his girlfriend Rosemary, who is usually played by Allie Daniel. When I saw the show, though, unforeseen circumstances saw Rankcom stepping into the role with remarkable composure and a lovely singing voice. Their rendition of “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm” sidestepped dodgy sexual politics through a twinkle in their eye.

“The show doesn’t feel stuck in the past”

Written by Frank Loesser (of Guys and Dolls fame), it’s one of many hummable songs in a score that’s better than it’s given credit for. All of the tunes are catchy and ‘Brotherhood of Man’ is a bona fide classic. I saw the Broadway revival starring Daniel Radcliffe in 2011, which had a huge cast. But believe me, the number is just as rousing a showstopper with just seven people performing it.

This production is sometimes a bit too frantic and rushed, and there’s more purple in its garish set design than at Paisley Park. But the script’s many zingers all land and when Finch says “I feel sorry for men who don’t knit, they lead empty lives” the show doesn’t feel stuck in the past. As knitting enthusiast Tom Daley would agree, it feels ahead of its time.

How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying is at Southwark Playhouse, London, until 17 June. Get tickets here