"Company". Oxford Playhouse

In 2018 there was a revival of Sondheim and Furth's 1970 hit Company in the West End. It featured international stars like Patti Lupone and Rosalie Craig. It was directed by the master practitioner Marianne Elliott. And it won almost every award going, from the Evening Standards to the Oliviers.

I saw it. And to compare an amateur student show with one of the most lauded productions of the last decade would be patronising and reductive. But I'm going to anyway:

This student show is better.

Company was the first ‘concept musical’. Rather than a conventional narrative, it’s a sequence of interconnected vignettes revolving around the pitfalls of married life in 70s New York. All the couples are friends of the central character Bobby who, at the age of 35, has still not settled down with a partner, and isn’t sure he’s ever going to manage it. The show unpeels the emptiness of marriage as a rite of passage, and questions the wisdom of following the crowd in matters of the heart.

It seems implausible, impossible even, that a group of young people, whose daily lives are consumed with libraries, lectures and laboratories, should have the talent, showmanship, theatrical nous and sheer, joyful dedication to deliver a performance of such consummate skill as this show gives us. But they do. The singing is remarkable, the diction clear as a bell, the dancing fluid and effortlessly synchronised, and the music as stylish, note-perfect and tight as any London show.

But that’s just the baseline to why Company is an outstanding production. What makes it really soar is its affinity with Sondheim’s unique character. It is completely, if you’ll forgive me, in tune with him. His work is an intricate mingling of opposites. On the one hand, bitterness, isolation and introspection; on the other, chorus lines, luxurious orchestration, romance and joy. Musical Director Tom Constantinou captures all of these elements, and succeeds in uniting them into a heartless, heart-warming whole. It’s a feast of subversive joy, capped by the attention to detail only a true aficionado could accomplish. In his programme notes, Constantinou tells how exhaustive experiments in rehearsal came to the conclusion that the ideal tempo for Amy’s high-speed tongue-twister Getting Married Today is 147 beats per minute. What more nerdish knowhow could you ask for from a Musical Director?

And Constantinou’s orchestra rises to the challenge. They take Sondheim’s syncopated rhythms, angular harmonies and complex polyphony entirely in their stride – and there are only 15 of them, some playing as many as five instruments over the course of the evening. It’s a massive achievement.

Working in tandem with Constantinou is Director Joshua Robey, veteran of such triumphs as Uncle Vanya and The Writer. Robey’s DPhil is on the subject of ‘audience discomfort in modern theatre’. What better choice could there be for him to direct than Stephen Sondheim, the arch-Prince of tonal discordancy, and creator of the feel-bad musical? Robey teases out the pain and pleasure of every scene. When Bobby takes air stewardess April back to his apartment, her comments on his interior decoration are hilariously shallow and vacuous, but here also betray a sense of lost potential and innocence that lift her above being a mere figure of fun. That’s the extra dimension that both defines Sondheim and distinguishes this production.

The 2018 version was famous for ‘updating’ Company for today’s world. It made Bobby a female role, and some of the couples were same sex. That’s fine. But Robey’s approach does something braver: it embraces Sondheim and Furth’s original intentions, and finds relevance without distortion. The costumes by Hannah Walton are gloriously, outrageously over-the-top seventies style, with lapels as wide as a door, and purple track suits that scream Central Park jogging. And these dovetail perfectly with Holly Rust’s inspired set: rather than a Manhattan skyline, the backdrop here is a children’s play-den, including ball-park, climbing nets and a slide. The suggestion is that the 1970s were a simpler, more naive time than our own complex and compromised era. The adults of 56 years ago were superficial and childish, but also innocently appealing. Their clothes look like they're straight out of a dressing-up box, and they live in a playground. When Bobby leaves through the door marked ‘Exit’ at the end, it’s as if he’s learned that there’s more to growing up than just getting married. He’s leaving behind childish things. It’s a transitional moment that still resonates with students in their last year at university. And it’s a (forgive me again) pitch-perfect parallel to Sondheim’s acerbic vision.

Amid the Studio 54-style fun, there is one scene in this production that stands eerily aside, and that is the bitterest moment of the entire show: Joanne’s (Orla Wyatt’s) Ladies Who Lunch scene. It’s a stinging tirade against the hypocrisy of wealthy, middle-aged women. But here it’s something more. Before it starts, the bright stage lights turn a stagnant grey, and a foreboding rumble fills the auditorium. Then techno music starts playing, and all the characters start dancing in the background – not disco, but modern club dancing, complete with vomiting in the street. It’s a glimpse into the future, and it makes Joanne’s harsh comments reach forward to our world, our hypocrisy and our relationships. Wyatt gazes out into the audience with basilisk disdain as she decries ‘The ones who follow the rules, And meet themselves at the schools, Too busy to know that they're fools’. New York 1970, meet Oxford 2026.

There are too many standout moments in Company to list. Looking at my notes, the word ‘incredible’ keeps popping up. Side By Side By Side is a show-stopping opener to the second half, outdoing many a Broadway musical while still sniggering behind its back. But the song that gets everyone on their feet in a spontaneous combustion of adulation is Getting Married Today. Rosie Sutton’s verbal dexterity, timing and delivery are as accurate as Luke Littler on a good night, and her rejection of marriage instinctively fresh and liberating.

There’s no weak point in this cast. Even their American accents are hard-boiled to perfection. Aaron Gelkoff, in the central role of Bobby, carries much of the show on his shoulders, and he makes it look like the lightest of burdens. From his first performance in Legally Blonde last year, Gelkoff has consistently enhanced Oxford’s stages, and this show is no exception.

But in truth, everyone is at the top of their game, and the production doesn’t just sing: it twinkles. For every angry word there’s a grin, for every desperate desire there’s a wink. These performances aren’t just solid, they’re bouncing with life and humour.

That sense of shared endeavour extends beyond the stage, to roles the professional world of theatre could never match. The second fly operator for this show is Gilon Fox. Last term he was one of the leads in A View From the Bridge on this very stage. And that’s what makes Oxford Drama so special. It’s a Company of equals.