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The past week has seen new productions of two shows - one a musical, the other a musical of sorts - about soldiers and sailors who have been sent out to hot, faraway places. They are both set in the 1940s; both feature shows-within-a-show; in both of them romance collides with racial prejudice. But beyond that, the contrasts are much more striking than the similarities. South Pacific, at the Oliver Theatre (sponsored by Barclays) is a blockbuster: confident, glamorous, ultra-professional, all-American Privates on Parade, at the Donmar Warehouse, is modestly proportioned, irreverent, slightly slapdash, and British as in "the best of British luck".
The big show has "success" written all over it -so much so that it's tempting, in defiance, to cast one's vote for the smaller show (which is certainly funnier). But in fact there is no need to choose. Both productions are firs-rate in their different ways.
Trevor Nunn's staging of South Pacific matches the show itself in its efficiency. It's good to look at, for a start. It opens, thrillingly, with a collage of newsreel film from the Pacific war projected on to a bit cylindrical screen; then we get rippling waves,, then the screen melts away and we're on a Polynesian island (where we ain't got dames). John Napier has supplied some splendid designs: solid-looking palm-trees, a veranda with a view, lush vegetation, sunsets which aren't too sunsetty. The military hardware runs to a couple of real live jeeps, and the period atmosphere is neatly caught. It's a bit like leafing through old copies of Life Magazine or the National Geographic, in the days when colour photos in magazines were still a novelty.
Then there is the score, which is the one aspect of any production of the show which no one is likely to argue about. The indestructible tunes keep flowing along, and on this occasion some of them also gain from reinterpretation of repositioning on Trevor Nunn's part. In particular, the character of Bloody Mary, the rotund native souvenir-seller, is given more depth. It no longer seems incongruous that she should switch straight from her huckstering to the haunting strains of 'Bali Ha'i', while her subsequent number 'Happy Talk' has much more pathos than usual. The part is notably well performed too, by Sheila Francisco.
Of the two principals, Philip Quast as the middle-aged French planter Emile de Becque is the more immediately winning: he's got rumpled charm, and a fine voice which soars when he wants it to.
About Lauren Kennedy, as Nellie Forbush, the young nurse from Little Rock, you at first feel more divided? She is as dazzling and clean-cut as a toothpaste advertisement: whatever the weapons in her armoury, mystery isn't one of them. But then that's the part. She plays it with great spirit and skill, and she wins through. But the end you are genuinely fond of her, and you are warmed - within the limits of the show - by her success in sloughing off inherited Little Rock prejudice.
Oscar Hammerstein, who wrote the book of South Pacific, had a message to deliver, against racial bigotry - an enterprising message for the Broadway of its time, over 50 years ago. But wisely, Nunn doesn't push this aspect of the show too hard. If he had, he would have run up with a thud against the sentimentality of much of the plot and characterisation. Much better to let the little song about children being taught to hate speak for itself, as he does, rather than ramming it home.
There are some excellent supporting performances, especially from John Shrapnel as the commander of the island base and Nick Holder as a cheerfully venal fixer with an eye for a quick buck. The show doesn't quite equal the National Theatre's success with Oklahoma! and Carousel, but it still sweeps you along.
