Our Benny, Liverpool Empire _320
"BRING your tissues” is the general warning from those who know the tale of Our Benny – including its cast. It’s good advice.
The Victorian Scouse tearjerker has been performed a number of times over the last 15 years as Her Benny, but has been revamped for 2008 with the hope of breaking out of Merseyside and touring farther afield.
With a strong ensemble cast, most with regional roots including Sam Kane and Bernie Nolan, Our Benny feels right at home on the Empire stage.
A musical adaptation of the Silas Hocking novel, it tells the story of street urchin Benny Bates and his challenges to keep on the straight and narrow.
Kane and Nolan complement each other adorably as Joe and Sally Wragg, a poor couple whose lives are given new purpose when Benny and his sick sister, Nell, come into their lives.
Kane’s signature song, As Long as I Believe, received rapturous applause and Nolan plays the devoted, good-hearted wife to perfection.
It’s a musical-by-numbers with no surprises, but which still tugs at the heart-strings all the same. Johnny Kennedy looks every inch an ideal Mr Lawrence. His operatic voice dominates his numbers, yet there is still a graciousness to his acting that a comforting presence for his cute-as-a-button onstage daughter Eva (Antonia Seiga).
The children in the production perform on alternate nights.
A disappointing sound set-up proved to be the biggest problem with the opening shows, with amplification cutting out and balance between the different voices often resulting in an unsatisfactory mix – again something that will hopefully be ironed out before the show ends on November 22.
