Edinburgh Fringe: Bugsy Malone – C Too

Book/Lyrics: Paul Williams, Alan Parker

Reviewer: Samantha Currie

The Public Reviews Rating:

The Portobello Youth Theatre was formed as a youth project in Edinburgh to give local children aged 8-14 the opportunity to perform musical theatre.

This year’s production is the musical Bugsy Malone. Set in 1929 New York City during prohibition, the mob rules, there are hoodlums, dancing girls and plenty of wisecracks as speakeasy owner Fat Sam battles with his gangster rival Dandy Dan.

Both Cameron Johnston (Bugsy) and Felix Charlton (Sam) give confident performances. Skye Galloway is well cast as the provocative club singer Tallulah. Hannah Low sings well as Fizzy the singing broom pusher which is a role usually played by a boy.

This is very much an ensemble show; all of the cast have their own moments to shine, performing multiple roles and treating the audience to some comical cameos. The principle characters have huge amounts of fast talking dialogue and impressively they all manage to remember their lines and maintain their New York accents throughout. Some of the more “diminutive” cast members unwittingly provide some of the most hilarious moments of the performance. The audience are in stitches during the musical number, “We Could Have Been Anything That We Wanted To Be”

First performance nerves showed at times, with a few fluffed and garbled lines and shaky vocals. These minor slips were handled with maturity and humour by the young players. The confidence of the cast should grow as the run progresses.

My 9 year old enjoyed it because cast are children and he loved the splat guns. This is a performance suitable for the whole family and it’s great to see so many local children involved.

Runs until 11th August

Edinburgh Fringe: Bugsy Malone - C Too, 4.7 out of 5 based on 6 ratings