Love Goddess: The Rita Hayworth Musical at the Cockpit Theatre

This show is ambitious in its scope: a new musical covering seven decades, countless films, five wildly limited husbands and one singular star. Rita Hayworth was the top pin-up of the 1940s, her role as Gilda setting the blueprint for all femme fatales, literally a bombshell with her image emblazoned on a nuclear bomb that the American army dropped during the World War II.

It’s quite a story, but amidst this iconic success was a sense that Hayworth was not entirely happy. She once lamented that “every man I knew went to bed with Gilda and woke up with me”.  

The two-hour musical gives a brisk run-through of the life of Margarita Carmen Cansino, born in Brooklyn to a Spanish choreographer father and American former dancer mother. Priming their daughter to perform from a very young age, the family move to Los Angeles where, in her teens, Margarita is pushed into what looks like an arranged marriage to a much older man, who can open doors for her. There are suggestions of impropriety in the relationship with her father but that is not expanded upon.

Co-creator, co-writer and lead performer Almog Pail began this show as a one-woman, one-act cabaret show. Her affection for her subject is clear: she brings a heartfelt sparkiness that is very reminiscent of Hayworth herself. The production has now been expanded to two acts with five energetic performers playing an unwieldy cast of over 40 characters. The chicly ramshackle Cockpit Theatre in West London is a small space to work with, with an in-the-round audience – a tough ask to perform a musical with singing and dancing in this limited space. 

The choreography is restrained but effective; the songs are pleasant but not memorable, more like musical sketches over sentences than fully formed numbers, though the two-man band crammed up in the rafters do a great job. The Five Men I Married is a sultry standout, a vampish dispatch with Bob Fosse overtones that plays out like the famous hall of mirrors scene from The Lady of Shanghai. This was an inspired touch, a pleasing meeting of real life, myth and art that would have been great to see more of. The Golden Age of Hollywood will never not be interesting, if for no other reason than it is a world that is long gone and can never be repeated. The more one peeks behind the smoke and mirrors, the more shocking its history is.

The show lags a little in the second half, struggling with the task of distilling a life into a few hours. It might have been more impactful to pick out a few key episodes and develop them, focusing in with more sharpness and dark glamour. But there is much here to like and admire 

Jessica Wall
Photo: Roswitha Chesner

Love Goddess: The Rita Hayworth Musical is at the Cockpit Theatre from 18^th November until 23^rd December 2022. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.