If you love musical theatre and fancy an evening filled with nostalgia, romance and stunning music, this Chichester Festival Theatre presentation of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific offers a night that will thrill and delight!

South Pacific premiered on Broadway in 1949 and was an instant success, since which time it has routinely captivated worldwide audiences and continues to sell out theatres to this very day. 
This current incarnation has been widely praised for emphasising Rodgers & Hammerstein's original progressive messages regarding racism. Society’s perspectives on race and gender have certainly evolved since 1949, and the characters and their attitudes are a reflection of the period of time in which the musical was written and first performed. The show doesn’t try to rewrite history but instead reflects how ugly some views were, especially regarding interracial relationships.

With all of that duly noted, the show is an absolute classic! Telling the tale of a group of American service personnel posted to the South Pacific during World War Two, it boasts a host of colourful characters and a string of well-known, much-loved and crazily catchy songs, including Some Enchanted Evening, I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair, There Is Nothing Like A Dame and Happy Talk, to name but a few.

The lead character of navy nurse Nellie Forbrush - played by Gina Beck - meets and loses her heart to handsome plantation owner Emile De Becque (Julian Ovenden). However, when Nellie discovers that Emile has two mixed-race children, the prejudices she brings from back home means there’s a real danger she’ll turn away from love.

Running alongside this international romance is another one, this time involving a US Marine Lieutenant - Joseph Cable - and a Tonkinese girl named Liat. Liat is the daughter of a vivacious islander known as Bloody Mary, who trades with the US marines and blatantly scorns them. She loves her daughter and is fiercely protective of her. Both she and Liat are heartbroken when Cable spurns her daughter’s hand in marriage out of prejudice, knowing, as he does, that their relationship would not be accepted back in America. Any chance of reconciliation is dashed when Cable is killed in action.

Both Nellie and Cable have been brought up in an age of racial segregation, a fact which stops Cable from seeing a route to happiness with Liat. In the case of Nellie, faced with the possibility of losing Emile when he embarks on a dangerous mission for the US forces, a reappraisal of her indoctrinated belief system eventually sees love overcome prejudice.  

As Nellie and De Becque, Gina Beck and Julian Ovenden have an alluring rapport. Beck plays the somewhat ditsy Nellie to perfection and sings beautifully on her own, with the ensemble, and in the pair’s duet, I’m In Love With A Wonderful Guy. Ovenden is suave, sophisticated, seductive and blessed with a stunning singing voice. His performance of This Nearly Was Mine is absolutely heartbreaking.

Bloody Mary - played by Joanna Ampil - is strong and imposing. Her rendition of Happy Talk embraces a range of emotions as she realises she has misjudged Lieutenant Cable. Rob Houchen, who plays Cable, steals the show with Younger Than Springtime, a lament which he sings after falling in love with Liat while knowing a long-term relationship with her could never work.

Tonight’s performance was utterly charming, providing everything you would expect from a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. The acting and singing were superb, the lead performers phenomenal, the costumes amazing, the staging and choreography wonderfully co-ordinated. But it was the energy and playfulness of every cast member which made the biggest, boldest and best contribution to this truly enchanted evening.

Five stars

Reviewed by Sue Hull at The Alexandra, Birmingham, on Tuesday 27 September. South Pacific continues to show at the theatre until Saturday 1 October.