Kiss Me Kate at the Barbican, review and star rating: ★★★★ Stuffed with old-fashioned jokes that should probably have this show cancelled, hilarious comic sketches and gripping choreography, Kiss Me Kate is a showstopper of a summer musical and much-needed feel-good energy amid this middling weather. It follows Follies and Anything Goes, further establishing the Barbican as an arbiter of taste for musicals. Granted, the leading lady Lilli Vanessi is dragged non-consensually onto stage by two brutes, and she does punch her former husband, the male lead Fred, in the face, wonky moments by today’s standards.
But they’re rather predictable complaints about a 75-year-old musical in an otherwise glossy production that burns with production value as well as feminist rage. Lilli and Fred used to be married but following their divorce, the two actors are forced together to star in a production of The Taming of the Shrew. Fred is the morally corrupt producer who owes a debt to the local heavies.
He gets a payout when the Shakespeare run is completed, hence Lilli, who plays the role of Kate, being dragged on stage against her will. Bartlett Sher’s super-charged production feels like a response to recent critical reception about Sher being too restrained across recent adaptations of The King and I and My Fair Lady . Featuring show-stopper versions of the original songs scored by Cole Porter , the real firework is It’s Too Darn Hot – about performing musicals in the summ.