And so we come to another movie-to-stage adaptation for the masses, this time focusing on the 1982 Richard Gere-Deborah Winger vehicle An Officer And A Gentleman. A romantic tale of a Navy cadet and his true love, spawning of course the Oscar winning power ballad Up Where We Belong sung by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, the song probably as famous as the movie itself. This second UK tour has hit the road in 2024 and looking around the auditorium it is clear that the 50+ hen generation are up for some serious romanticism. Coupled of course with a soundtrack that transports us all back to the 1980s.
For those who cannot recall the story, Zack Mayo is sent to live with his womanising father,a petty officer in the US Navy, following the suicide of his mother. Zack surprises his father by eventually declaring that he wishes to train to become a US Navy fighter pilot. This is where he encounters tough talking Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley who is determined that he will drill them hard into passing the relentess physical and mental training regime. Zack and his fellow cadet Sid meet two factory girls at a dance, Paula and Lynette, whom they start dating respectively. The tale of Zack and Sid is not pretty, with the latter committing suicide, a turning point for the rebellious Zack and his transformation into an officer and a gentleman.
To be honest, the story is pretty cheesy and some of the dialogue with its regular doses of "son of a bitch" type Americanisms come close to being a spoof of itself. However the producers know the power of nostalgia, and interspersed with these scenes of self discovery comes a soundtrack that hits all the right notes. The show is a feast of 80s musical excess, think Billy Ocean's When The Going Gets Tough, Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Foreigner's I Want To Know What Love Is and perhaps most infuriatingly catchy Bon Jovi's Livin' On A Prayer. Definite crowd pleasers that allow the audience to gloss over the problems with the script, and just enjoy being back in the decade of neon.
On the night we saw the saw, tour leads Luke Baker and Georgia Lennon were absent, but in their place two confident performances by James Wilkinson-Jones and Julia Jones whostole the limelight as Zack and Lynette, with Georgia Lennon as Paula and Paul French as Sid completing the romantic quartet. Jamal Kane Crawford was particularly well cast as Emil Foley, forever testing and goading his recruits.
Ben Cracknell's impressive lighting added much atmosphere to the scenes, his star very much in the ascendant particularly at the Curve in Leicester where this production originated. Similarly the Curve's Nikolai Foster does his best to get some gravitas to the story, but some scenes miss their mark which is more to do with Douglas Day Stewart and Sharleen Cooper Cohen's lacklustre script than any misgivings of this production.
At the end of the day, its all about the songs. We get the moment when Zack dressed in his military whites carries off Paula to the sounds of the shows anthem, with added cheers and whoops from the faithful. An Officer And A Gentleman is an entertaining show for sure, our advice is to switch off your brain and wallow in a decade long past and let love lift you up.
Rob & Ian
