Jerry Herman has always had a soft spot for Mack & Mabel but it has never enjoyed the success of his other Broadway musicals, Hello, Dolly, Mame and Cage aux Folles. The score is bright but the book is poor. Mack is Mack Sennett, the film director, who made the Keystone Cops movies, classics of the silent cinema, and masterpieces of vaudeville slapstick. The charismatic Norman Bowman manages to make Sennett likable and unlikable at the same time, no mean accomplishment. Mabel is Mabel Normand (Laura Pitt-Pulford) who was the most famous comedienne of the silent era. The musical traces their tempestuous relationship. She was into drugs, alcohol and wild parties. She died young. The pall-bearers at her funeral in 1930 included Louis B Mayer, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, D W Grifith and Sam Goldwyn.
Southwark Playhouse is situated in the tunnels under London Bridge Station and has difficulty getting the acoustics right for its musicals. Thom Sutherland’s energetic production suffers seriously from the singers and orchestra being so over-amplified that you cannot hear the lyrics. Choreographer Lee Proud has fun with a Keystone Cops pastiche.