Dogfight, The Southwark Playhouse

First a film and now a musical, this uncompromising story of three men on the night before heading to war was a hit in the US and now has its European premiere in the Southwark’s main auditorium. The reception has been mixed, with an illustrious five stars from the Independent and a meagre two stars from the Evening Standard.

When it premiered in the US, Dogfight won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical and was showered with praise. The composers, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, are both Tony nominees for their work a musical based on A Christmas Story. This is their second adaptation of a film into a musical. 

The Story...

Dogfight refers to a party to which men must bring the ugliest women they can find and whichever woman ‘wins’ (the top dog) gets $100. It is 1963 and three marines attend a dogfight the night before being shipped out to Vietnam. Heartbroken and humiliated, waitress Rose flees the party after being brought there by Corporal Eddie Birdlace, a mixed-up young man who follows her in order to make amends. That evening, after buying her dinner by way of apology, Rose ends up sharing her dream of becoming a singer and slowly the couple find themselves enjoying each other’s company, on Eddie’s last night of freedom. 

Featuring soaring songs like Hometown Hero’s Ticker-Tape Parade and the sixties classic Hey Good Lookin’, this is an adaptation crafted with love. The original film starred River Phoenix as Eddie, a role the king of film critics, Roger Ebert greatly approved of, going on to summarise the film: “Maybe you have to be a little idealistic to even enjoy this [story] - to understand what it means to [Rose], to play her folk records and sit in her room and feel poetic and lonely.” 

It is at its heart a love story, praised by the New York Times for “finding melodic grace in romantic awkwardness”. The Southwark has assembled an excellent cast: Jamie Muscato, best known for his work in The National’s musical The Light Princess and both the film and stage version of Les Miserables, plays Eddie. Rose is taken on by Laura Jane Matthewson, a Royal Academy of Music graduate making her London stage debut after several years as a vocalist and featured artist on television.