Too close to home...? Who'd have thought it in 2024?
In my three visits to Wilton’s this year I have walked up Cable Street in the East End, so it seems odd to be visiting Cable Street (the musical) at The Elephant (Southwark Playhouse).
Brought back after a very successful opening and short season earlier this year, this is played in a new Southwark theatre (in a tower block basement) – presumably a planning gift – a cramped space but with a passable acoustic.
The ensemble cast of 13 (with an orchestra of 5 – including cast members) offers a whirlwind tour of the events leading to, and from, the ‘battle’ of Cable Street in 1936 when a combined force of (100,000 to 300,000, estimates differ) east-enders, including the large east-end Jewish population, communists, socialists, anarchists and dockers struggled with 6-7000 police (including the mounted police) protecting 2-5000 of Mosely’s Black Shirts intent on forcing a march through the Jewish areas of the East End.
The cast plays, of course, all three groups and individuals who were effective non-combatants on the day, by following 3 families caught up in the struggle. Oh, and the personifications of 4 main newspapers of the time, including the poisonous Rothermere Daily Mail.
There are a (small) number of belting tunes in this musical (the others, less memorable), are still well sung.
We are introduced to the history via a present day tour of the area (yet more doubling) and we even have a competing Ripper tour interrupting things.
The actual battle (opening the second half), is well done and the aftermaths probably tell a fair story but there is too much of this – it’s nice to see outcomes but it probably wasn’t dramatically necessary (and the songs in this part aren’t that good!).
A nice conceit (but I think it’s just that) is to hijack ‘No Paseran’ as a song for the battle – but it was certainly true that the (Moscow led) Communist party was more focused on Spain than Shoreditch at the time.
It’s a politically moving musical, and rather too apposite for our current times.