The show works a treat: Globe’s The Tempest reviewed

Southwark Playhouse has a reputation for small musicals with big ambitions. Tasting Notes is set in a wine bar run by a reckless entrepreneur, LJ, whose business bears her name. In real life, LJ’s bar would go bust within weeks. It serves vintage wines to a clientele of wealthy tipplers who chug back large tureens of Malbec and claret but who eat no food. The staff help themselves to free champers and Burgundy whenever they choose, and the boss fusses around like a mother hen making sure her brood are safe and content. Bad punctuality is never punished and the staff improvise each shift as they go along. But the emotional atmosphere of LJ’s feels right. It’s a substitute family for the drifters and dreamers who work there, and the customers are treated as pals rather than clients. When a friendly alcoholic, Joe, fails to arrive for his evening bottle of grog, the staff rush to his flat. Joe is found dead by his own hand. Or was it foul play?

The music, by Richard Baker, successfully meets the modest standards it sets itself. The multi-layered script is the star of this show. The incidents are small but crammed with tension and dramatic potential, and the focus keeps returning to the same short scenes and studying them from different angles. Gradually the truth about Joe’s death emerges. It keeps you on the edge of your seat.

The love interest comes from two shy employees, Oliver and Maggie, who are perfect for each other, but neither has the guts to make the first move. George (Sam Kipling) plays matchmaker to the shrinking violets but they shrug aside his efforts. Both seem destined to die celibate but they eventually manage to crack the ice. Not every cast member is a world-class singer but the standard of acting is excellent throughout. Nancy Zamit does a great comic turn as the sweet, vulnerable and foolish LJ. Stephen Hoo (Joe) is a fine performer with a leading man’s looks and a mesmerising voice.

Us by David Persiva is a romcom which messes around with its internal chronology. The show looks at the first half-hour and the final half-hour of a relationship and deliberately tells the story out of sequence. Early on, the couple exchange romantic anecdotes and the girl mentions a one-night stand that turned unexpectedly into a threesome. Her date left the bedroom and invited his flatmate to join in. She wasn’t consulted about this arrangement but she went along with it anyway. Why? ‘Sometimes it’s easier,’ she admits.

An angrier playwright would have turned this incident into a harrowing drama about consent and the evil patriarchy. But this subtle, delicate comedy wants to study the intricacies of a real-life romance as it develops. It has a documentary feel to it. Only in the final moments do we learn of the accident that brought the pair together in a boxroom at a social event. Any chance interruption or any failure of nerve by either party might have blown the moment and scrapped the affair before it started.

The Tempest at the Globe, directed by Sean Holmes, has taken a lot of flak for its batty, self-indulgent design. The characters are at a poolside get-together in partywear and the opening scene shows us a booze-up on an ocean liner as it sails through a tropical storm. ‘We split, we split!’ cry the terrified characters. And yet, even after being shipwrecked, they keep their party hats on. This festive gesture cuts against the script which insists that Mother Nature is a savage and murderous force.

Never mind. Each costume works on its own terms. Nadi Kemp-Sayfi (Miranda) wears a tight red miniskirt which displays her long, shapely legs and makes her look like a conjuror’s assistant about to be sawn in half on a TV show in the 1970s. A hole appears in the stage and an actor pops up wearing a natty grey suit like an estate agent. This turns out to be Olivier Huband who plays Ferdinand with great ease and charm. He’s a fine speaker of the verse too.

Ferdy Roberts is an oddly angry Prospero. Rather than giving us the usual portrait of a cuddly old fruit, he focuses on the magician’s ill-tempered nastiness and love of vengeance. And, perhaps unwisely, Roberts has decided to appear with his suntanned body entirely naked apart from a tiny pair of speedos which are as yellow as ripe bananas.

Despite the off-key visuals, the show works a treat. There’s a tremendous sense of fun and informality on stage and the actors add un-Shakespearean phrases like ‘bloody hell’ or ‘Jesus Christ’. The crowd went wild when the cast shouted abuse at the bothersome jets passing overhead. Heckling Ryanair should be part of every Globe production.