Cable Street, a new musical
Southwark Playhouse
 

THIS retelling of an iconic story manages to be exuberant and inspirational, while delivering a chilling reminder of the easy rise of the far right.

The Battle of Cable Street defined an era; as Franco, Mussolini and Hitler savaged democracy, Britain’s own tin-pot dictator, Oswald Mosley, targeted the East End. Some 5,000 zealots from the British Union of Fascists (BUF), with a buffer zone of 6,000 police, would be confronted by 300,000 anti-fascists.

The plot is well known, but the decision to render this bloody clash as a musical was a brave move. Director Adam Lenson says: “Musicals are misunderstood, expensive, multilayered and complex. But sometimes, against all the odds, a show finds its way into the world.” Writer Alex Kanefsky and composer/lyricist Tim Gilvin discovered they had, independently, had the same idea. Their determination has created an exceptional piece of theatre.

From the moment Joshua Ginsberg (Sammy) bounces on stage, the energy level is set. This lovable lad, desperate for work, considers his Jewish name to blame for doors slammed in his face. Danny Colligan (Ron) has come from Lancashire, leaving a landscape of closed mills, and finding the cobbled streets of Stepney paved with nothing but dirt.

Third of the triumvirate is Sha Dessi (Mairaid), communist, poet, firebrand, an Irish lass unafraid to tell her countrymen, and her embittered mammy, that singing the auld songs will not protect them from venal landlords and black-shirted thugs.

Her plea to support an oppressed working class elsewhere is met with sarcasm: “Aid for Spain? What about Aid for Stepney?”

As the ensemble sing My Street, there is a palpable love of community, bonding the disparate groups. There is resonance for a modern audience, recalling our own anti-fascist challenges, “Whose streets? OUR streets!”

As Ron’s hope for work disappears, here comes the lure of the local BUF leader, played superbly by Jez Unwin, who moves from smarmy-charming to brutish. His anti-semitic slurs are a punch to the guts. Then, a scene joyful in its sheer invention: never, since the genius of Mel Brooks brought us “Springtime for Hitler” in The Producers, could you imagine a BUF Anthem reimagined for a boy band. 

Stand-out stars here are Dessi, whose diminutive stature commands the stage; Colligan, whose song of despair is mesmerising; and the ridiculously talented Debbie Chazen, playing an Irish mammy, Jewish neighbour, bullying policeman, and American tourist. One line from Chazen, as an elderly Jewish woman, survivor of pogroms, now witnessing police horses charging: “Oy gevalt, they’re sending the Cossacks!”, elicits a belly laugh and a chill down the spine.

This forceful iteration doesn’t end with the battle. In a dedication to telling a bigger story, we see a strengthened community launching rent strikes. The East End stands up, for itself, and for us. No pasaran!

Runs until March 16. Box Office: 020 7407 0234, southwarkplayhouse.co.uk