A TALE OF TWO CITIES Charing Cross Theatre

Charles Dickens’s serialized novels were instantly turned into plays; sometimes, pirated even before he had finished writing them. The Victorians loved melodramas. We do, too. Today, they are regularly serialized on television. Ten of them have been turned into musicals; only one has been really successful. No prizes for guessing which. A Tale of Two Cities needs a big theatre, a full orchestra and two charismatic actors of the same age who look uncannily alike, plus, of course, a guillotine. Watching this musical version, a work in progress by David Pomeranz and Steve David Horvich’s, which has none of these things, I idly wondered, if Jill Santoriello’s recent American version were given a salvage operation, and the full Les Miserables treatment, whether it might be a far, far better thing.