An Officer and a Gentleman: The Musical – overcoming working class odds with 1982 sensibilities and a 1980s playlist of hits (Grand Opera House until Saturday 16 March)

Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley is taking the class of 1982 through their 12-week officer candidate training course in Pensacola, Florida. Not everyone will make it to the end, and fewer still will get a coveted place learning to pilot a navy jet. Many will end up ‘flying a desk’. There’s tension between the military and the townsfolk. The them and us mentality can be felt in the local bars. Foley warns his candidates that the local women will try to entrap them by becoming pregnant to escape the area with its low paid factory work and little hope of advancement.

An Officer and a Gentleman: The Musical is adapted from the popular original movie by the film’s screenwriter Douglas Day Stewart and Sharleen Cooper Cohen. The plot is interrupted by songs from the 1980s. Shoehorning in a militaristic side drum-heavy version of The Final Countdown towards the finale – the lyric “We’re leaving together” fits the graduation ceremony – is either an act of genius or completely misplaced. The performance of Material Girl feels like it’s gone completely Ken and Barbie with pink jackets and a pink skirt … though it does also echo Madonna’s music video. With 22 songs to get through in less than two hours, everything is condensed and there’s probably an over-reliance on crash key changes to build emotion and keep the rev count needle firmly in the red.

Zack Mayo (played by Luke Baker) is overcoming the odds of a dysfunctional upbringing to take a crack at becoming an officer, something his navy father never managed. Zack strikes up an unlikely friendship with Sid Worley (understudied by Danny Whelan with considerable aplomb on Tuesday night) is the son of an admiral, reluctantly stepping into the family business.

I’d expected this review might comment that many in the Grand Opera House auditorium had come to enjoy the sight of men in their pristine navy white uniforms. And the evidence of whistling and cheering did strongly confirm that hunch. But I also wondered whether the same audience might also be faced with an uplifting and challenging second storyline about the local women that would run parallel to the tough training course.

Zack’s eye is caught by student nurse Paula Pokrifki (Georgia Lennon, no stranger to Grand Opera House pantomimes). They deliver a very sweet first act duet I Want to Know What Love Is and Lennon impresses with her solo numbers. Nikolai Foster’s direction includes a superbly awkward meal when Zack is invited to dinner with Paula’s parents. Sid falls head over heels in love with Paula’s fellow factor worker Lynette (Sinead Long).

Early on in the first act, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World sets up the theme of sexual inequality. Later, a powerful rendition of I Am Woman tries to push it further. But the 1982 sensibilities haven’t been updated, so entrapment is still the order of the day, leading to the tragic death of one character. I Am Woman’s lyric “I am invincible” is somewhat undermined when it is quickly followed by the statement “I want to marry a pilot to get out of here”.

Ultimately, the gender struggle is resolved by a working-class officer physically lifting a working-class girl out of her factory enslavement. It recreates an iconic image from the film, but also ignores her ambition to be a nurse in the act of carrying her off into his future. The song might be Up Where We Belong but the storyline reinforces the notion that marrying a sailor is the only true aspiration a woman can aim for if she doesn’t want to “stay in the box” she was born into.

Jamal Kane Crawford shines every time he marches on stage as Foley. He quickly establishes his no nonsense approach as the candidates start their three-month journey, and his singing voice is as strong as his parade ground hollering. After the interval Foley’s character is given depth and we learn about his motivation for pushing some of the candidates to their limit. There’s tough love hiding amidst the swagger and bullying. The extended fight scene is one of the more convincing pieces of musical theatre fight choreography in recent years. Olivia Foster-Browne packs a vocal punch and her character’s tricky relationship with Foley has a good pay off at the end.

Belfast is just the third destination of the UK tour. The production is still finding its feet and there is room for improvement. Having uttered “We don’t have to talk at all” a couple walk off visibly chatting. Kitting out two stage hands with racing crash helmets to push a partial car prop around the stage was a somewhat random production design decision

While the plot almost trips from lines of dialogue into song, the sound mix sadly loses some of the softer vocals even in the live band’s more mellow moments. The cover versions are usefully far removed from the original arrangements, tonally adapted for the musical rather than being pure jukebox numbers. There’s some rather fine artistry on display, none more so than during the beautifully (and deliberately) discordant Kids in America. It’ll be a dreamy track on a cast album.

An Officer and a Gentleman: The Musical faithfully reproduces the film’s plot. The musical elements show off the cast’s talent, even if some of the numbers fail to move the story along. The production continues its run in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 16 March.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

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