Sinatra The Musical - Review

Aldwych Theatre, London

****

Written by Joe Di Pietro

Directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall

Joel Harper-Jackson

The song, dance and music in Sinatra The Musical is world-class entertainment. A ‘juke-box’ show that threads together most of Ol’ Blue Eyes’s most recognisable numbers, for those who love Sinatra’s style, flair and voice, the evening is one of sublime talent.

Joe DiPietro’s book charts Sinatra’s life from around the 1940s over a handful of decades, peppering the timeline with hit after hit, each loosely woven into the narrative.

What makes this show soar however is not so much DiPietro’s book, as the legacy of Sinatra’s work, breathed into life at the Aldwych by Joel Harper-Jackson in the title role. Harper-Jackson is sensational in both tone and presence, and if you’re lucky enough to catch a split-second glimpse of his profile from the side, the resemblance to Sinatra is uncanny. The show’s creatives have played a smart move (for the most part) in how the songs are deployed through the evening. Opening with All Of Me (that proves to be a mini-motif of the evening), a novel twist sees Come Fly With Me used as the musical backdrop to Sinatra bedding his way through Lana Turner (Becky Anderson), Judy Garland (Jenna Innes) and Marlene Dietrich (Allana Taylor).

These women were of course bit-parts in Sinatra’s life, with the most influential females turning out to be his mother Dolly (Jenna Russell), first wife Nancy (Phoebe Panaretos) and his subsequent wife Ava Gardner (Ana Villafane). This talented trifecta are handed juicy solos across the show, with Villafane shining in Nice And Easy Does It, Panateros making heartbreaking work of In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning, while Russell along with Marty Aguire as her hubby Marty, sparkles in You Make Me Feel So Young. On the night of this review Sylvie Regan was Little Nancy, who sang with an enchantingly commanding presence.

If there is a criticism of the show it is Joe DiPietro’s wafer-thin book, the years playing out with a bland predictability. Aside from Russell’s fiercely matriarchal mamma, there is barely any humour at all, the mark of the perfect juke-box musical being that it can carry one’s interest in between the songs. There are moments during the dialogue when the evening drags. We already know that Sinatra was a serial womaniser with links to the Mob – Di Pietro sheds little new light on the singer’s journey. And deciding that Sinatra should sing The Way You Look Tonight to Little Nancy as she prepares to accompany him to the Academy Awards is the absolute depth of sugary, cutesy, kitsch albeit beautifully sung.

Those looking for Sinatra's classics will not be disappointed. That's Life and My Way bookend the interval, while New York, New York is gifted to the audience as a singalong number during the finale.

Kathleen Marshall directs and choreographs with flair, while Dave Rose’s 17-piece band are sensational (and don’t forget to stay for the exit music when each band member riffs a stunning solo!)

Lavish production values and oh, those magical songs!

Booking unti 10th April 2027

Photo credit: Brinkhoff-Moegenberg

Top Hat - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Music & lyrics by Irving Berlin

Book by Matthew White & Howard Jacques

Directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall

Lucy St Louis and Phillip Attmore

Broadway’s gifted director and choregrapher Kathleen Marshall returns to the UK to helm a gorgeous production of Irving Berlin’s Top Hat.

Berlin’s wondrous songs and the original RKO movie may hail from the 1930s, but the stage show is very much a 21st century confection that takes the film’s ridiculous plot, a narrative so corny that it is the very definition of” musical comedy”, using it as a framework on which to showcase nearly 20 of the American Songbook’s most sparkling gems.

The musical’s story sees two young Americans fall hopelessly in love, albeit their path to happiness is blocked by a delightfully entertaining spin around mistaken identities. Phillip Attmore as Jerry Travers and Lucy St Louis as Dale Tremont lead the show  and while both  deliver perfection in their song and dance, it is left to the show’s gifted supporting characters to truly flesh out the evening’s comedy drama. Alex Gibson-Giorgio plays a preening Italian fashion designer with more than an amorous eye for Miss Tremont, while James Clyde turns in a grand performance as Bates, a manservant who pops up throughout the tale in a range of disguises.

Delivering the evening’s most exquisitely defined masterclasses in stagecraft however are the performing legends Sally Ann Triplett and Clive Carter who play Madge and Horace Hardwick respectively. These two actors are just a crowd-whooping delight whose take on Outside Of That I Love You displays their experience and skill in knowing “just how” to deliver that killer lyric or gag punchline to perfection. To be truthful, the show’s jokes are as old as the hills – but in the hands of Triplett and Carter who cares? Their work puts the humour back into humanity and makes the evening soar! Stephen Ridley directs his 12 piece band masterfully, making fine work of the classic and much-loved melodies.

Top Hat does what it says on the tin. An evening of fabulous Broadway fun that will light up the country on its nationwide tour well into 2026.

Runs until 7th September, then touring

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Anything Goes - Review

Barbican Theatre, London

*****

Music and lyrics by Cole Porter

Original book by P.G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay & Russell Crouse

New book by Timothy Crouse & John Weidman

Directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall

Kerry Ellis and the cast of Anything Goes

It says much for the quality of writing in the 1930s that nearly some 90 years after it opened on Broadway, Anything Goes can still pack a hilariously powerful punch with its heady cocktail of song and script. This is a show that lampoons (harpoons even) much of both British and American cultures and many of today’s emerging writers (with only a few exceptions) would do well to get themselves to the Barbican to see what good musical theatre – book, lyrics and score - really is.

Meanwhile, having completed its UK tour, the SS America returns to tie up in London, offering the capital another chance to wallow in the unabashed joyous glory of Kathleen Marshall’s Anything Goes. The big four names from last year’s outing of this revival are gone – replaced by Kerry Ellis as Reno Sweeney, Simon Callow as Elisha Whitney, Bonnie Langford as Evangeline Harcourt and Denis Lawson as gangster Moonface Martin and for the most part this quartet are excellent.

What also drives this show immeasurably is the featured artistes who have remained onboard from 2021. Samuel Edwards as Billy Crocker, Nicole-Lily Baisden as Hope Harcourt and the deliciously named Haydn Oakley playing Lord Evelyn Oakleigh are all as magnificent now as they were then – with this whole crazy pot-pourri of a show giving rise to one of the most fantastic evenings of entertainment to be found anywhere in town.

The show’s songs and plot are the stuff of legend – this cast however take them to another level. Ellis captures the insouciant brilliance of Sweeney, not just in her perfectly pitched vocals and footwork, but in her delivery of the rapid-fire gags too. Good comedy requires not only a finely tuned script, but split-second delivery and Ellis (and her troupe) truly are the tops.

Callow was born to play crusty aristocrats, not least this Yale-educated captain of industry and he adds comic heft to an already inspired creation. The writers knew how to mock stereotypes and Callow milks every precious moment that he is granted on stage with sublime precision. Callow's singing nor his footwork may not be the best – but the matured genius of his stage presence more than compensates. Bonnie Langford equally has a role that is paper-thin in its perfectly structured two-dimensionality and yet again, every second of her performance is exquisitely on the money.

Baisden is handed the tough role of being almost completely non-comedic – yet she handles the critically important role of Hope flawlessly. Carly Mercedes Dyer as Erma remains an absolute scream, while Oakley’s Oakleigh is truly one of the most inspired comic turns around. Even if you’ve seen the show countless times before, this iteration will have you moist-eyed with its whip-sharp delivery. And then there’s the dancing - Ellis leads her company through a demanding range of numbers with none surpassing the title number that closes the first act and which seems, breathtakingly, to go on forever.

For a production built for the road the sets are ingeniously lavish as doors and decks slide away, revealing the ship’s cabin interiors. Derek McLane’s designs enhanced by Hugh Vanstone’s lighting plots are simply top-notch. In the pit Mark Aspinall makes de-lovely work of Porter’s score, his 16-piece band delivering a lavish sound.

This production stunned London in 2021 as the city was beginning to emerge from the pandemic and one year on, its return is equally welcomed. In a song and dance show that is drilled to perfection, this is musical theatre at its glorious, frivolous finest.

Runs until 3rd September

Photo credit: Marc Brenner