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This most idiosyncratic of Sondheim musicals comes to London where many of the audience remember the original British BBC television programme of the 1960s. In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, London comedian Frankie Howerd, as the slave Pseudolus, sent up life in a fictitious street in Ancient Rome with its bizarre mix of knowing slaves, nubile wenches, young blade and bombastic soldier. The whole is a brilliantly funny evening of simple pleasures, nothing too challenging, but colourful and as easy on the eye as the pretty girls.
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The show opens with a big bang and the well known song, "Comedy Tonight". I adored Quast's rendition of "Bring Me My Bride" but musically, while pleasant enough, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum isn't the kind of show which sends me straight out to buy the CD.