Dominic Mattos reviews The Two Most Perfect Things, a clever but overly fact-packed musical revue.
Put together by Adrian Fisher The Two Most Perfect Things tells the story of the Master (Noel Coward) and the Governor (Ivor Novello), examining their intertwined lives, and showcasing their remarkable contributions to the British songbook. Fisher is to be commended for piecing together the stories of these two greats in a staged format and it is a clever move to use the words of the men themselves to form the script (gleaned from diaries, anecdotes and memoirs). Despite this, the information we are given is too copious and too workaday to be truly engaging in a revue setting. What comes across is the mutual respect and love that these two legends of stage and screen had for each other, but the heart is often lost in a sea of facts.
The songs, performed by the cast of four with interjections from musical director Stuart Barham, are more successful. We are given comic treats such as ‘And Her Mother Came Too’, together with poignant numbers, including ‘I’ll Follow My Secret Heart’. Novello’s great anthem of the First World War, ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, is redolent with power and raises the show to a new level, producing a lump in the throat even now.
By the time we reach the late 30s we are well convinced that Coward and Novello appreciated each other, but as the air-raid siren hails the interval it all feels needlessly downbeat, whereas darker elements in both men’s lives that could have been interestingly teased out are swept over speedily.
Act two provides us with Coward’s most memorable show-stoppers, as well as Novello’s other great war song, ‘We’ll Gather Lilacs’. We are then swiftly led towards a fitting finale in ‘Wild, Wild Weather’, only to be presented with a medley encore that starts with great fizz, but goes on for far too long.
The cast for the most part manages well, and when they are singing in ensemble the show is at its best. Perplexingly, given the experienced cast, the solo singing sometimes feels pinched on top notes, and we are left craving those pitch-perfect pianissmos that can melt the heart at the top of a Novello melody. So much work has gone into this evening, such clear research and such good intentions in bringing the work (particularly of a largely forgotten Novello) to a modern audience. These aims are laudable and there are hints of what the evening could be in some of the songs and anecdotes, such that true aficionados will be delighted. But it is often just too much. There are so many songs, and so many nuggets of information, that sadly this Cowardy custard is a little over-egged.
The Two Most Perfect Things runs at Riverside Studios until 21st July. 
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