At least, that was always my take on the best known version of the story, the Billy Wilder movie The Apartment starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine as Chuck Baxter and Fran Kubelik. He is the accounts clerk who climbs the corporate ladder by lending his flat to executives to use for extramarital trysts, and she is the company caterer he falls for.
In this small, ambitious revival of the big Broadway hit which ran for 1,281 performances, they have certainly found their Lemmon and MacLaine.
As Chuck, Gabriel Vick has something of Lemmon’s inconspicuous charm and as Fran, Daisy Maywood has a lot of MacLaine’s lovelorn innocence. They look like their predecessors, too. Trying to match such huge stars could have backfired terribly in a he’s-no-Lemmon and she’s-no-MacLaine kind of way. But it doesn’t. Vick and Maywood generate the sweetest synergy. And it may only be January, but Bronagh Lagan’s production boasts two of the musical theatre performances of the year.
Turning films into musicals is often seen as a relatively modern trend and can trigger a fair amount of cynicism — some of it from me. The musical version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels always felt to me as if the creative impulse was commercial rather than artistic — which is not to resent a penny of the box office. But to be loved, a show has to have heart — something that for all its redundant sexual politics Promises, Promises has in spades.
With a script by Simon, whose crackling dialogue makes sentimentality respectable, how could it not? The same could be said of Bacharach and his lyricist Hal David, whose songs have that instantly recognisable, languid melody and percussive drive.
The show could do with a cut. And the seriously unfunny comedy morale raiser A Young Pretty Girl Like You sung by Chuck and his doctor neighbour Dreyfuss should be first in the queue. But once the wisecracking Jewish doc is out of the way — an archetype that should be taken only in small doses — it’s followed by a beautifully performed duet version of I’ll Never Fall In Love Again sung by Vick and Maywood.
Also worth a mention is a terrific comedy cameo by Alex Young as a divorced vamp and Natalie Moore-Williams as the secretary who rebels against her philandering boss. And although neither characters are exactly role models, unlike the vast majority of men here, they at least emerge with some dignity intact.