There's no one a day under 68 in The Young at Heart Chorus, but hips swing like they've never heard of arthritis, and smiles gleam as if dentures were the must-have accessory of the season. Whether it's 87-year-old Eileen Hall cantankerously declaiming Should I Stay Or Should I Go or 77-year-old Joseph Benoit beefing it up as one of the Elvis triplets, this show makes you drop so many preconceptions about pensioners, you could almost believe there's nothing as sexy as the silver years.
Chorus director Bob Cilman (a youthful satyr lookalike) started up the chorus 18 years ago, launching a battle against tedium at a low-income meal centre. The centre changed from a waiting room for those shuffling off this mortal coil to a talent hothouse for those wanting to boogie back to the future, and facts of life like osteoporosis and senility were ditched for rhythm and attitude.
The stage is set up like an old people's home, luring the audience briefly into the grannies' territory of cups of cocoa, benign nurses and bored-as-hell games. Before you had time to relax into your prejudices, however, an explosion of rhythm and old men prancing around in cowboy suits wakes the audience up to the evening's irreverent agenda. Soon an old man is shimmying on as Marilyn Monroe, with a gold dress, and eyelashes so ridiculously long and stiffly curled he could use them as curtain hooks. Later, a small elderly woman sings I Will Survive accompanied by a chorus with the animation of hyperactive pogo sticks.
Cilman has structured the show exquisitely - from absurdity to poignancy and back again. After the laughter at Eileen Hall's Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's 80, it's lump-in-the-throat time as the chorus comes on in shroudlike white night clothes, and sings Stairway to Heaven. A boisterous number will precede heartfelt whispered lyrics, while the bright lighting for one song deepens into an intimate dark blue for a more introverted performance. You laugh, while feeling the tangibility of their mortality.
The show sets up a hotline to the emotions by bypassing patronising attitudes to old age. This stairway to heaven is guaranteed to trip up cynics.
Until 4 November. Box office: 020 8741 2311.
Road To Heaven
