A high-camp, high-kitsch, low-brained saga of a nightclub songwriter (the
desper- ately eager Gary Wilmot) fantasising him- self into a Euro-Disney pantomime complete with marauding pirates, this is a show with all the energy and charm of a dead goldfish. Only Mr Manilow's millions can explain how it arrived in the West End, or how long it will survive there, but by the time the setting had moved to what looked like the honeymoon suite of the Havana Hilton during amateur talent night, I began at last to understand Castro's thoughts on the evils of capitalism: this is the Manilow- est of the low.
Home (newly revived at Wyndham's) has never been where my heart is, though the first production back in 1970 did introduce us to the stunning late-life partnership of Gielgud and Richardson, by Sir Ralph's own admission the brokers' men of great classical theatre. There is now an addition- al hazard however: as with Alan Bennett's The Old Country, once you are in on the surprise of the setting, delivered late in the first act here as there, the play loses some of its power to surprise.
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