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Fiona Mountford's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Tim Carroll.
Cast: William Findley, David Morley Hale, Dominic Gerrard, Sholto Morgan, Matt Devereaux
Description: Milligan's tragi-comic Second World War memoirs, adapted for the stage by Ben Power and Tim Carroll.
Trains: Tube: Swiss Cottage 
Phone: 0207722 9301
Website: www.hampsteadtheatre.com
Jazz breaks out in the trenches: Dominic Gerrard as Edgington and Sholto Morgan as Spike, members of the D Battery Quartet making light of their wartime service
It’s not just Hitler we’re dealing with here. This delightful adaptation of Spike Milligan’s books of war memoirs also covers the likes of Monty: His Part in My Victory and Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall, as the future Goon advances through the battles cocking snooks at everyone’s military machines. The result is the liveliest show that Hampstead, not generally much of a laughter zone, has presented in ages.
Milligan’s writing is fizzing, anarchic and loose about its grammar, basing its freewheeling style on the jazz that he loved so much. Co-adapters Tim Carroll and Ben Power sensibly go with this flow, arranging the material along the lines of a lovably chaotic ENSA-style revue, with songs interspersing the narrative episodes and actors linking the sections in the manner of 1940s radio announcers. Thus we follow Milligan from the day war broke out — news relayed to the nation by “a man called Chamberlain who did Prime Minister impressions” — to his conscription into the Royal
Artillery, through to active service in North Africa and Italy.
Fun as all this undoubtedly is — although a sluggish first-night audience was sometimes slow to appreciate the piece’s peppiness — there are, nonetheless, weaknesses. Spike’s manic inventiveness occasionally makes us want to raise our hands in surrender, even though he grows increasingly sombre as the war drags ever onwards. Of more concern is the fact that we form only a sketchy acquaintance with the other men — Edgington, Goldsmith and Kidgell — who comprise the ad hoc “D Battery Quartet”, completed by Milligan on trumpet. One of them actually dies in 1943 — I barely noticed his absence.
Carroll himself directs with appropriate sparkiness, and there’s one particularly cherishable piece of stage business where Edgington plays the significantly named Warsaw Concerto while British and German soldiers push his piano about in a territorial tussle.
The five actors burst with energy as well as proficiency on their various instruments and make a lovely noise in the likes of Chattanooga Choo Choo and Ain’t Misbehavin’.
Sholto Morgan, looking uncannily like the young Milligan, makes his professional debut in the role of Spike with such gusto that some Best Newcomer nominations must be heading his way. My greatest regret is that we never do get to hear the end of the joke about the two prostitutes who open a kosher brothel on Finchley Road.
Until 22 August. Information:
020 7722 9301. www.spikeswar.com
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
