30 December 2024
In 1961, Viv Nicholson and her husband won a record £152,319 (£3.5m adjusted for today) by predicting score draws on the Football Pools, but blonde Viv made all the headlines after telling the tabloids she was going to “Spend! Spend! Spend!”. She was as good as her word and the working class couple, who each earned just £5 a week as colliery and shop workers, blew everything in a four-year frenzied spending orgy of furs, sports cars, champagne, days-long parties with an army of hangers on and lavish holidays.
The multi award-winning musical Spend Spend Spend by Steve Brown (who passed away earlier this year) and Justin Greene, based on the book by Viv Nicholson and Stephen Smith, was a hit in the West End in 1999 (the choreographer then was Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood – Olivier nominated) winning both the Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical as well as bagging eight Laurence Olivier nominations.
Playing ‘young Viv’ – two actors share the role on stage – Rachel Leskovac made a dazzling West End debut, securing an Olivier Award nomination (only losing out on the night to her co-star, veteran Barbara Dickson who played ‘old Viv’). In the feisty Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre revival, directed by Josh Seymour, Leskovac is this time playing world weary ‘old Viv’, casting a sardonic eye on proceedings, and the part fits her again like a glove.
Rose Galbraith as the younger Viv does most of the heavy lifting in the show. In her hands Viv is a vivacious girl-next-door type, grabbing life by both hands – and never funnier than when she explodes out of bed in a big satin bow and Marilyn Monroesque evening dress to dance with delight after first discovering sex. But she’s unlucky in love (and money) marrying 6 times to a bunch of deadbeat losers who are almost all physically violent. Her second marriage to Pools winner Keith (a charming performance from Alex James-Hatton) leads to 4 children in quick succession and appears the happiest but ultimately ends in tragedy.
It’s actually a neat trick having two actresses on stage driving the story along. Close your eyes when they are both singing and you’d swear there was only one. They are that close musically.
The large cast dance up a storm and manoeuvre in and out of the in-the-round stage with ease, but the other characters are mostly cyphers. It’s always wonderful to see Rebecca Thornhill (so memorable as Mama Rose in Gypsy at the Mill at Sonning) but her characters of Mrs Waterman and Liz are sketchily written.
The music is mostly sung through with few memorable stand out songs but the rousing miners’ chorus in ‘John Collier’ is genuinely thrilling choral work by the entire company.
Today’s mega National Lottery winners are offered financial advisers and plenty of emotional and mental support but Viv and her husband Keith were pretty much left to their own devices resulting in a lifetime of misery. This rags-to-riches and back again tale is Cinderella with a twist, a moving morality tale for our own spend-today-and-pay-tomorrow age.
