Noel Coward's "Bitter Sweet" has a rich vein of melody flowing through it, most of it, like the hit song "I'll See You Again" in three-four time. It's modelled on the Viennese operettas of Strauss, but with Coward's own beautiful bone-dry lyrics.
Walmsley Church AODS is giving it a welcome revival this week, firmly directed by Audrey H. McL. Raistrick and with good support from the musicians under Jessie Whittaker.
Coward provides some memorable tunes, including "Zigeuner" and the regulation drinking song for the soldiers. But he's at his witty best when writing for the "outsiders", the shady ladies of the town and the effeminate fops of Vienna cafe society, revelling in the disapproval they provoke.
The show has its own rompingly rude bunch of flappers, but concentrates for the most part on the vain, self-absorbed members of the aristocracy.
At the centre of the show is the young pair of lovers, with soprano Joyce Foster singing attractively, and hinting at the girl's underlying wistfulness.
She is well partnered by Ross Dunning, a conspicuously "nice guy" as the cafe pianist Carl Linden. Glenys Poole gives a good performance too as the cloche-hatted mantrap, Manon.
Walmsley's production is at its best in the effective cabaret atmosphere of the second act, in which Coward obviously felt most at home. It's a rare revival of a large cast show which was first given a spectacular staging by C.B. Cochran in Manchester in 1929, the same that Walmsley performed its very first show.
