Stuart Wood was enchanted and overwhelmed when he first saw Jaques Demy's musical masterpiece The Umbrella of Cherbourg. The theatre production has been directed by Emma Rice and produced by Daniel Sparrow, so how did the classic film translate on stage?

Renoir wrote that ‘the public is grateful to a director who shows how our front doorstep can lead to Sleeping Beauty’s castle.’ He could have been writing about Jacques Demy whose films drew on musicals, fairytales and the golden age of Hollywood whilst remaining true to the subversive tone of the French New Wave. The same is true of Emma Rice, director of a stage version of Demy’s masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which opened in London this week. Rice’s work for Kneehigh Theatre Company has explored melodrama for the digital age; adding irony and humour without betraying the sincerity and magic of good story telling.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is the most beautiful film I've ever seen.  I discovered it after Demy’s death of Aids in 1990 and the consequent resurgent interest in his work. The film won the Palm D’Or at Cannes in 1964 and was nominated for 5 Academy Awards. I had no idea of its pedigree; I simply loved the explosion of colour and melodies in the minor key with completely sung dialogue. It all looked like an average day of my own life! Demy fought the belief that musicals couldn’t make it in France and on the wave of the counter-musicals of the late 1950’s like West Side Story; he collaborated with composer Michel Legrand who was the darling composer of French New Wave cinema. Umbrellas put both of them on the map – Legrand went on to write numerous Hollywood film scores including the classic theme song The Windmills of your Mind.

When such a definitive version of a work exists on celluloid the challenges to successfully stage a live version seem huge. I remember my mother taking me to see The Sound of Music at the Apollo Victoria in 1981 starring Petula Clark and the general consensus on the coach home that it wasn’t as good as the film. Such is the protective zeal of Joe Public.

I spoke with producer and Hospital Club member, Daniel Sparrow last week and asked him how the production came about? Fellow ‘Australian in London’ Luc Mollinger, one the Hospital Club’s Creatives in Residence, gave Daniel a DVD of Umbrellas a couple of years ago. “I owe it all to Luc Mollinger! I immediately fell in love with it.” Such are the benefits of club membership, then?

“I rang up to find out about the rights. At the same time director Emma Rice from Kneehigh Theatre was pursuing the rights to perform the work. I couldn’t think of a more wonderful choice.”

Serendipitously, composer Michel Legrand was in London for the opening of his musical Marguerite in the Haymarket. He couldn’t help but notice the long queues over the road where Kneehigh’s mixed-media adaptation of Brief Encounter was playing. Legrand felt he had at last found the right director for Umbrellas. “The estate joined us all together and here we are on the West End!”

What was it like working with Legrand and Sheldon Harnick (who had translated the libretto back in 1979 and was called in to tweak)?

“I experienced an incredible generosity that perhaps you don’t experience from some younger artists or from the estates of dead ones.”

Legrand’s greatest challenge was to reduce the highly complex, symphonic score so it would work with a 7-piece band, who rise to the challenge of making it sound simple. The main theme “I will wait for you” loaded with irony, considering the outcome, is one of musical theatres greatest tunes of all time.

So, to the show itself? One reviewer, in front of me, stood up in the interval shouting into his mobile phone; “It’s an absolute turkey….no worse! And there’s some really weird looking people in here…”

My friend said he wasn’t looking at me at the time. Obviously not a fan of the film, because the stage version is a highly classy affair, which remains true to Demy’s vision. In addition, Emma Rice has created the role of Maitresse played authoritatively by the real life cabaret artist known as ‘Meow Meow’.

This Brechtian set up invites us into the magical world by addressing our shared cynicism of sung-through drama. She crosses the fourth wall, at times appearing in the drama herself, a conceit that cleverly separates the stage version from the celluloid one and gives the production its own theatrical identity.

Something very original happens when the music starts. Hearing the complex melodies, which match very closely the rhythms of every day dialogue, sung with the detail of an artist like Joanna Riding, is like discovering the music all over again. Fusing jazz, and French chanson with operetta, Legrand’s music is both delightful and remarkably rich. Hearing the words in English allows us to recognise this fantasy world as our own. The simplicity of the Genevieve and Guy can make them seem sexless but since this is a fairytale melodrama where the musical tone is naïve it would have been a cheap gimmick to sex it up.

The casting is true to the score. The addition of the Cherbourg sailors, who serve tea and carry the principles across the stage in sofas, sounds ridiculous but adds another level of artifice, which we totally accept. Even the use of the Dominic Marsh playing Aunt Elise further heightens the illusion surrounding young love, making the audience constantly work at suspending their disbelief. This builds us up to the sensational climax.

I can’t see how even the harshest critics of this production, of which there has been several this week, couldn’t fail to be moved by the coup de theatre which comes at the end of Act 3. Reality bursts through the back wall of the theatre and the live music becomes soundtrack with the whole cast as stacked harmonic chorus vocalising the big tune. There were shivers down the spine and tears running down my legs! I don’t know how long this show is going to last because it challenges our expectations and leaves unanswered questions – which in my, but not everyone’s, book are strengths. It may have worked better in a different venue even though the Gielgud theatre is beautiful, Hair didn’t work there either. However, I strongly recommend experiencing it because it’s a truly imaginative and at moments,
beautiful piece of theatre.
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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg at the Gielgud Theatre until 1st October 2011.

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