‘Betty Blue Eyes’ is a brand new musical comedy by Cameron Mackintosh based on the Alan Bennett and Malcolm Mowbray story and film entitled ‘A Private Function’ starring Maggie Smith and Michael Palin. Set in a rural village in 1947 the community are anticipating the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh.
The tale centres around ‘Betty’, an adorable pig with blue eyes, who is being illegally reared for the Royal Wedding celebration banquet. Due to harsh post-war rationing the community sings of long queues at the butcher’s and the boredom of meals consisting of Spam in various guises, including duck a l'orange.
‘Joyce Chivers’ played by Sarah Lancashire leads the stand out performances from Reece Shearsmith as her aspirational chiropodist husband ‘Gilbert Chivers’ to Ann Emery as ‘Mother Dear’ and an hilarious performance from Adrian Scarborough as the manic meat inspector ‘Wormold’.
Directed by Richard Eyre ‘Betty Blue Eyes’ is not only technically brilliant it is nothing short of a master class in how to construct the perfect musical. Stephen Mear’s choreography was especially appealing due to the vibrant 1940’s swing sequences.
The best timing of all must surely be that the launch of ‘Betty’ coincides with the current Royal Wedding celebrations.
The astronomical £100,000 spent on creating ‘Betty’ the life-size faux pig who has a very comical and endearing way of fluttering her eyelashes just when someone is talking of a Roast Pork dinner….was worth every penny!
Listen out for Kylie Minogue as the voice behind ‘Betty’.
This review was written for The Vintage Guide to London
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