Speaking as an attendee of the Morning Melodies concerts for over a year now, not once has a program failed to please. Not only me, of course, but a huge crowd of people who line up for tickets from as early as nine in the morning.
Given the hour, it is understandable that most patrons are retirees, and the programs are largely planned for that demographic. This one, Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye, was sure to be a winner.
With director Stuart Maunder for a father and singer Anne-Maree McDonald for a mother, it was probably inevitable that young Lucy Maunder would have found her way onto the stage. Add in baritone Alex Rathgeber and you have an act that cannot fail to capture an audience.
Advertised as ‘popular and inspiring songs of the wartime period’, it was expected that the songs would be popular ones from World War Two – but with the exception of ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ ‘Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye’, ‘London Pride’, and ‘We’ll Meet Again’ the program was a mixed bag. Some songs I had never heard before, and some were drawn from other decades.
We got going with ‘When this Lousy War is Over’, from Oh, What a Lovely War!, surely one of the best parodies ever dreamed up as it goes to the tune of the hymn ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’. This morphed into a medley of songs from the same show including ‘And When They Asked Us’ and the eponymous ‘Oh, What a Lovely War!’.
So, I decided, this is not going to be Dad’s Army revisited or It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. It was, in fact, more like an anti-war protest – yet the audience, whose expectations had probably been similar to my own, lapped it up. There were songs and stories galore: snippets of memories, letters, and reminiscences from ordinary people who had lived through a war.
Some of the songs were acted out as short scenes. Lucy Maunder and Alex Rathgeber sang several duets. Being the ‘juvenile leads’ in the show, they were frequently called upon to present a romantic interest. However there did not seem to be much chemistry or even sympathy between them, until the letter scene from Dr Zhigavo, where they hit just the right note, if you’ll pardon the bad metaphor. Rathgeber also judged finely the difference between sentimentality and genuine feeling in his rendition of ‘Tell My Father’ from the musical The Civil War. There were a lot of moist eyes at the end of that one!
We got some laughs from Stuart Maunder camping it up as Noel Coward – he came on several times in this guise, once wearing a feather boa as he sang one of Coward’s bawdier ballads. Another funny scene gave us ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’, ‘Run Rabbit Run’ and ‘Bless ‘em All’. Yet despite its lighter moments, this was a show about the sadness and loss inherent in warfare. The finale gave us an Australian take on the topic, ‘Waltzing Matilda’ with hints of a minor key giving way to the rarely-heard ‘Brown Slouch Hat’ and a reprise of ‘We’ll Meet Again’ for the audience to join in.
Ann-Maree McDonald at the piano provided a constant support, sometimes channelling Dame Vera Lynn’s distinctive glissando style as she joined in the singing. I was surprised at how much this grated – it was a very popular singing technique in the 1940s, but to the modern listener it just sounds slightly out-of-tune.
This is a seriously talented ensemble. If you get a chance to hear them, don’t hang back. They are well worth the price of admission.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
His Majesty’s Theatre presents:
Morning Melodies – Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye
Featuring Lucy Maunder, Stuart Maunder, Anne-Maree McDonald and Alex Rathgeber
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth
13 March
