Festive treat that sounds familiar

THE SOUND OF MUSIC, Lowry, Salford to January 2

“A FAMILY, riven by tragedy and afraid to love; a woman, torn between God and the world. When they get together, the result is ... tuneful.”

Say that to yourself in one of those deep and husky Hollywood movie trailer voices and this Rogers and Hammerstein classic has all the elements of a much harder, grittier tale.

And in fact that is pretty much the plot of “The Sound of Music” we know and love: Rodgers and Hammerstein loved to introduce gritty elements to offset the sugar in their shows — South Pacific’s wartime setting for example, or here the prelude to the Anschluss and the Second World War. But try asking anyone who goes to hear “Edelweiss” again if they notice.

That’s because the musical has always also been the sweetest of the great shows. The children are delightfully cute (except Brigitta, last night Lucy Grant, nine years old going on 40 and so clued in to the emotions of others she could become a top therapist by the age of 12).

The captain is heroic and stoic (but Corrie’s Gray O’Brien sadly can’t really sing) and Maria (“The Voice” runner-up Lucy O’Byrne, who really can sing) is sweet, loving and looking for a place to belong that ideally doesn’t have Nazis.

This is billed as a “new” production of the musical, produced by Bill Kenwright — which means, as usual, that it looks good and is mostly well cast, but is a bit lacking in any real flair. Maria’s opening “Hills are Alive” number, for example, is a bit lacking in joy.

But as for “new”, well it’s pretty much like every other production I’ve seen, except it seems more complete, with a couple of songs for Max (Duncan Smith) and Elsa (Isla Carter), that are sometimes cut.

Not that any of this amounts to serious criticism: if you have tickets over Christmas it will prove to be a family treat, as you no doubt expect.

The performances are enjoyable and the show is what it is: almost three hours of favourite song after favourite song, with emotional and physical peril, love and loss, danger and the hope of freedom included. Plus a batch of angelic singing nuns, led by a mother abbess (Jan Hartley), who sings “Climb Every Mountain” better than any 5,000 soccer fans.