Theatre review: Martin Guerre

For what must surely be Matthew Warchus' final new production at the Old Vic he revisits Alain Boublil (book and lyrics,) Claude-Michel Schönberg (music and lyrics) and Stephen Clark's (lyrics) Martin Guerre in what is described as a new version of the musical and, frankly, when has this ever been staged in anything other than a rewritten version? I saw the original production 30 years ago and I still didn't quite see the first version: By the time I went in 1996, a couple of months after it premiered, it had already briefly closed and reopened once for a major rewrite and relaunch, which was evidently a lot more popular than the one critics had first seen, but still wasn't successful enough not to get completely retooled every time someone revived it. This time around Annabel Mutale Reed (lyrics) & Paul Hodge (lyrics and additional material) get added to the increasingly hefty roster of writers, to help turn the unwieldy epic into a 100-minute one-acter.In 16th-century rural France,…