Hello, Dolly! - Review

London Palladium, London

****

Book by Michael Stewart
Music & lyrics by Jerry Herman
Directed by Dominic Cooke

Imelda Staunton

Several years in the making, but at last Imelda Staunton's Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! arrives at the London Palladium.

This is a musical that appears full of fun, froth and fancy restaurants but at its heart is all about the very essence of the human condition. Dominic Cooke coaxes a gorgeous interpretation of Levi’s strengths and vulnerabilities from Dame Imelda who perhaps is at her most vocally magnificent in the act two tear-jerker Look, Love In My Window. Of course Staunton powers her way through the massive numbers of  Before The Parade Passes By and the title number itself, but it is in capturing  Dolly’s fragility that the actor is at her finest.

Andy Nyman is Horace Vandergelder and Jenna Russell, Irene Molloy, both of them making fine work of supporting Staunton. Equally Tyrone Huntley and Harry Hepple as Vandergelder’s hapless employees are a comedy delight.

Bill Deamer’s choreography is a treat as he makes fine visual use of the 36-strong company luxuriously filling the Palladium’s massive stage. In the pit, Nicholas Skilbeck’s lavishly appointed 22-piece orchestra deliver a gorgeous interpretation of Jerry Herman’s timeless score.

But for a show that is steeped in the very essence of New York from Yonkers to 14th Street NYC, if there is a flaw in the evening it is that we are not transported convincingly to the Big Apple. Finn Ross’s scrolling projections - often found to be brilliant enhancements to a show - are over-deployed here, losing much of their transformative impact.

Hello, Dolly! does not come around that often to a major London stage, least of all with a Dolly of Staunton's calibre and this run itself is tantalisingly short with barely a two month residency in the West End. But the show's song and dance credentials, delivering one of Broadway's all-time greats, are impeccable. A fabulous night of musical comedy.

Runs until September 14th

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Gypsy - Review

Savoy Theatre, London

*****

Book by Arthur Laurents

Music by Jule Styne

Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Imelda Staunton

It is rare to see perfection improved upon, but in its transfer from Chichester Festival Theatre, Jonathan Kent’s Gypsy achieves just that. A highlight of 2014, the resonance of Jule Styne's big band brassy score filled the Sussex theatre's world class open stage. But Gypsy was written in and for the Golden Age of Broadway, to be mounted on a proscenium stage. In re-sculpting their masterpiece to fit the Savoy’s traditional confines, Kent and choreographer Stephen Mear have excelled.

Like a fine wine, Imelda Staunton's Momma Rose has matured since last year's press night. To this most complex of women (a role sometimes likened to the King Lear of musical theatre), Staunton now adds an even richer lustre. Not just a pushy mother, Rose is at once loving of her daughters yet insensitive to their needs, principled and yet shamelessly opportunistic and above all, endowed with the most monstrous of egos. Staunton owns her stage mastering a complex cocktail of passion, drive and ultimately the most fragile of vulnerabilities in a virtuoso performance. Stamping her mark on the show with a strength of voice that matches perfection in tone and an unbelievable presence, her comic one-liners are as perfectly honed as the pathos she wrings in her spot-lit solo finale, Rose's Turn. Truly, Staunton is now the finest female actor of her time.

Lara Pulver is exquisite as the initially fragile and over-shadowed Louise. In Little Lamb, Pulver blends a painful poignancy alongside our horrendous realisation that she is a young woman whose emotional development is literally being stifled by her mother. In a performance of mastered subtlety, Pulver commands our sympathy throughout. Thrown onto a burlesque stage at a moment’s notice, Pulver makes her first faltering steps into small-town sleaze straight into a piercing white spotlight and her character’s awkward pain is evident. But when she emerges, sable clad in fame and fortune yet still able to comfort her distraught mother whose own dreams now lie shattered, Pulver breaks our hearts.

Peter Davison completes the leading trio. New to the show, he brings a relaxed yet weathered and leathered credibility to Herbie that was the one missing link in Chichester. Davison can sing and move in line with his stature - and as Stephen Mear has already commented, the chemistry between Davison and Staunton sparkles.

Gypsy’s gems are richly sprinkled amongst its uber-talented company, with Dan Burton’s Tulsa proving him to be as smoothly voiced as his body is lithe. Burton’s routine in All I Need Is The Girl oozes the coolest of romance, with Mear choreographing the man magnificently.

Gemma Sutton's June hits the mark in the first half. One of the leading talents of her generation, Sutton imbues her over-mothered character with just the right amount of squeaky-voiced ambition, yet also despair. Top notch dance work from this talented young lady too.

The three seen-it-all Wichita strippers played by the (far from veteran) Anita Louise Combe, Louise Gold and Julie Legrand, offer the show’s wryest perspective, with a world-weary wisdom not dissimilar to the tragi-comedy of Hamlet’s gravediggers. Their wonderful You Gotta Get A Gimmick proving gloriously and hilariously that womanhood is still to be celebrated after the flush of youth has faded. 

The kids on press night were a polished troupe, with Isla Huggins-Barr’s Baby June bravely and brilliantly dancing her socks off, winning the West End audience with a precocious charm. A nod too to Holly Hazleton’s impeccable Baby Louise, one of the few kids to transfer from Chichester in what is a challenging role.

Anthony Ward’s design deploys ingenious scene shifts, framed within a chocolate box lid of a proscenium façade, whilst Nicholas Skilbeck’s direction of his 15 piece orchestra (all brass and wind, there’s no space for schmaltzy strings in this show) breathes a magnificence into Styne’s compositions that wows from the Overture’s opening bars.

In an era when juke-box songs, fancy stage sets or stunt casting are frequently needed to sell seats, Gypsy marks (another) breath of fresh air in recognising the simple genius of a perfectly written show, exquisitely staged. Moments such as the jaw-dropping choreography of the Time Lapse Transition, Jerome Robbins' original Broadway routine, leave us stunned.

Gypsy’s stage may have shrunk since Chichester, but like Babies June and Louise, this show has grown. Only in town for a few months, they don’t get better than this. Know too that in her Momma Rose, Imelda Staunton is offering the musical theatre performance of the century.

To read my recent interview with Stephen Mear on bringing Gypsy to the West End, click here

To read my review of the original Chichester production, click here.

Gypsy is now booking until 28th November 2015

Gypsy - Review

Chichester, Festival Theatre

*****

Book by Arthur Laurents

Music by Jule Styne

Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed by Jonathan Kent

Imelda Staunton

Vaudeville is dying in 1920’s America. Against that backdrop and to Arthur Laurents’ book, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim have penned one of the bleakest yet most beautiful musicals ever. Gypsy, set in the Great Depression, charts Momma Rose’s manic depression, who as the pushiest of parents sets out to channel her own fading dream of showbiz stardom, through the lives of her daughters.

Imelda Staunton's Momma Rose defines the role. She and Jonathan Kent have previous of course, with her Mrs Lovett in his Sweeney Todd proving Chichester's 2011 sensation, going on to win her an Olivier the next year on its West End transfer. This remarkable actress offers a totality of commitment, in movement, voice and emotion that proves a truly rare trinity. As well as the most complex of paths to pathos, Staunton also finds the humour that Sondheim subtly weaves into his prose, with Small World in particular proving a delight. It is of course in the delivery of those massive numbers Everything’s Coming Up Roses and Rose’s Turn, that Staunton proves herself beyond compare amongst her generation.

The impact of the abusive emotional neglect that Momma Rose heaps on her daughters is brought into painful relief by Lara Pulver as the over-shadowed Louise and by Gemma Sutton (a name increasingly associated with exquisite performances) as her spotlight-addicted sister June. Pulver’s portrayal of Louise, continually being overlooked in favour of her sibling, is never once overplayed by the actress. As vaudeville dies and Momma Roses pushes the shy Louise into the spotlight as a small town burlesque stripper, Pulver gives one of the most poignant segues ever, as the brutatlity of her mother’s pushing evolves into the tender, initially damaged response of the daughter. Oh and her voice in the glorious penultimate number Let Me Entertain You, is heavenly. Alongside and as a hangdog Herbie, a complex man desperately out to win Rose’s love, Kevin Whateley, a name not often associated with musical theatre convinces us of his commitment to Rose’s dream.

Other notable gems in this jewel box of a cast are Dan Burton’s Tulsa whose grace in both voice and dance wows in All I Need Is The Girl, whilst (the almost) veteran Louise Gold as Mazeppa plays the most world-weary of strippers who’s seen it all and proves as much, leading a gloriously sleazy line in You Gotta Get A Gimmick. And a salute too for young Georgia Pemberton, whose presence, dance and baton twirling brilliance as the Young June is an absolute treat.

Stephen Mear’s choreography is incisive and beautifully conceived. His company work is a joy throughout, with the meticulously managed “mediocrity” of Broadway, as Rose’s vaudevillian hoofers bungle their way through a routine, proving to be a classy confection.

The design by Anthony Ward neatly combines marquee lights with the drabness of assorted downtowns, whilst directly beneath the stage the most gloriously proportioned pit, being used here for the first time in the newly rebuilt venue, accommodates Nicholas Skilbeck’s fifteen piece (predominantly brass) band. Styne’s score is given a truly thrilling treatment, with the Overture alone setting spines tingling.

The good people of Chichester are spoiled with the flawless perfection of this show. As Gypsy demands all from Imelda Staunton, so too does theatre demand that this production reaches a wider audience. Go see Gypsy – Its haunting perfection will stay with you for a long time.

Runs until 8th November 2014