High Noon - Review

Harold Pinter Theatre, London

**

Written by Eric Roth

Based on Carl Foreman's motion picture

Directed by Thea Sharrock

Billy Crudup and Denise Gough

The translation of High Noon from Western to West End is a gamble as risky as awaiting the arrival of a convicted vengeful murderer on the midday train. But where Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 Oscar-winning masterpiece told a wondrous story, Eric Roth’s debut stage-play guns down the legendary yarn, leaving the exquisite original bleeding in the dust. 

Zinnemann relied on immaculate performance, cinematography and music for his screen masterpiece. Roth condenses that narrative into a claustrophobic work of trashy pulp fiction that’s very heavy on exposition and includes a liberal use of foul language that jars when set against the beauty of Carl Foreman's movie screenplay.

Billy Crudup delivers a decent turn as marshal Will Kane, a man forced to confront his nemesis Frank Miller, and on his wedding day too. Opposite Crudup and perhaps the evening’s biggest disappointment is Denise Gough’s two-dimensional and cliched turn as Kane’s bride Amy Fowler. The only performance that comes close to matching Crudup’s work is from Rosa Salazar as the town’s bar-owner and hooker, Helen Ramirez. Hers is a role of curious complexity that Salazar delivers with compassion and sensitivity. Elsewhere, too many of the cast are doubled or even tripled up in the roles they are allocated - that at times is more of a confusing distraction than an advancement of the plot.

Roth's tinkering with the political nuances of the movie is clumsy. Where Foreman's writing offered up a poignant allegory upon the evils of McCarthyism under which he had been persecuted, Roth (no-doubt inadvertently) sometimes sets his Kane on a pedestal alongside Donald Trump and Rudolph Giuliani, in his references to how effectively the marshal had cleaned up the town's historic crime problem. 

The usually brilliant Tim Hatley has designed a set of wooden slats that creates an effective suggestion of the brilliant sunshine of America’s frontierland, but is otherwise too nondescript an affair to effectively portray the tumbleweed nature of the town. Hatley does however conjure up an enchanting arrival of the eponymously climactic steam train - a staging that leaves one wishing he could have been as equally inspirational in his far more bland railway designs that are currently the backdrop to Starlight Express. And quite why Roth has chosen to pepper his script with snatches of Bruce Springsteen and Ry Cooder has to remain a mystery.

A clock sits atop the stage counting down the show’s 100 minutes. With the play lasting a quarter of an hour longer than the movie, those minutes drag. If High Noon is to mark a trend of Westerns being transformed into stage productions then may I respectfully suggest that Mel Brooks is approached for the rights to Blazing Saddles.

Runs until March 6th

Photo credit: Johan Persson

The Devil Wears Prada - Review

Dominion Theatre, London

*****

Music by Elton John

Lyrics by Shaina Taub and Mark Sonnenblick

Book by Kate Wetherhead

Based on the novel by Lauren Weisberger and the motion picture screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna

Directed and choregraphed by Jerry Mitchell

Vanessa Williams

In a whip-smart fusion of stunning style and content, The Devil Wears Prada arrives in the West End to deliver the capital's most impressive new musical theatre production this year. Elton John's score soars from rock through blues, to balladry and soul, transforming this modern classic’s take on the fashion industry’s soulless brutality. Matching Sir Elton’s music, Jerry Mitchell’s direction and choreography takes the story on a sparkling transition from screen to stage.

Vanessa Williams returns to the London stage to lead the show as Miranda Priestly, the editor of fashion glossy Runway and a woman who can make or break careers in haute couture. Williams is an inspired casting choice with the presence that she imbues in Miranda as razor-sharp as her Louboutin heels. 

In an astonishing West End debut Georgie Buckland is Andy (Andrea), the story’s protagonist whose arc we follow as she starts off as Miranda’s novice personal assistant, but who rapidly learns how to shin the world of publishing’s famously greasy pole. Buckland is handed the lion’s share of the evening’s big numbers, closing both acts of the show with Miranda Girl and What’s Right For Me respectively, songs in which she rises to fill the Dominion’s massive space.

The show’s two other featured roles are Runway’s creative lead Nigel played by Matt Henry and Miranda’s long serving assistant Emily played by Amy Di Bartolomeo. Both are equally magnificent bringing power, pathos and humour to their respective performances.

Tim Hatley’s scenery, Gregg Barnes’s costumes and Bruno Poet’s lighting make for stunning visuals from the outset, while Katharine Woolley’s musical direction offers a fine interpretation of the compelling score.

The Devil Wears Prada is famous for showcasing fashion’s cutthroat competition with a story that revolves around aspirations, dreams and treachery in both the boardroom and the bedroom. It is a credit not only to Elton John, but to lyricist Shaina Taub and Mark Sonnenblick and to bookwriter Kate Wetherhead, that they have crafted such a fine adaptation of Weisberger’s original.

This musical is a mutli-million dollar extravaganza built on the highest production values. For those who enjoy a good story, compelling new writing and brilliant song and dance, The Devil Wears Prada is unmissable. 

Booking until 18th October 2025

Photo credit: Matt Crockett

Starlight Express - Review

Troubadour Theatre, London

****

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Lyrics by Richard Stilgoe

Directed by Luke Sheppard

Jeevan Braich (Rusty) and the cast of Starlight Express

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express arrives at Wembley Park’s Troubadour Theatre transformed from its 1980s opening into a show for the 21st century. Much of the composer’s magic remains, with that modulation half-way through the title song being up there among the best of Lloyd-Webber’s melodies. Families taking their kids to see this enchanting tale of a set of toy trains that come to life in a child’s imagination will not be disappointed.

The story’s narrative is that classic tale of growth and self-discovery, of strength and self-belief over adversity as Rusty (played by Jeevan Braich), the battered old toy steam engine seeks to prove himself against the newer rival locomotives, Greaseball (Al Knott) the diesel and Electra (Tom Pigram) the electric train.

The show offers a robust musical theatre experience. With the lead characters and ensemble all on roller-skates, the speed and visuals of the performances are literally breathtaking with the show's creative credits proving impressive. Tim Hatley’s designs make use of most of the Troubadour’s cavernous interior alongside Howard Hudson's sensational lighting and laser work (the technology allowing the remote follow spots to track the skaters is astounding). Andrzej Goulding’s video designs, Gabriella Slade’s costumes and Jackie Saundercock’s make-up work are equally stunning, even if their creations resemble Marvel Comics' Transformers rather than trains!

If one has younger family members or friends who will enjoy the show, or is even just a devotee of the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber or musical theatre then a trip to Wembley is well worth the effort and expense.

However…for those that saw the show some 40-odd years ago it is worth pondering: If the machine wasn't broken, then why did Lloyd Webber and his equally gifted lead producer Michael Harrison seek to meddle with it? Too many songs from the brilliant original have been chopped, including A Lotta Locomotion, Only He and Only You. Hatley’s skating tracks, while unquestionably exciting at the Troubadour do not match the thrill one felt in the Apollo Victoria, where the skaters soared from the stage up and out to the very rim of the theatre's dress circle before returning to traverse John Napier's mesmerising bridge that flew and spun above the stage.

The show’s re-imagined casting is also flawed. While it is a fine idea to now have a real child as Control (on the night of this review the delightful Shaniyah Abrahams was in charge of the trainset), the writers have transitioned Poppa into Momma. Jade Marvin in this role has a beautiful voice and presence, but she lacks the baritone heft that back in the day would have inspired the creation of Poppa's vocals. This is much missed, most notably in two of her critical numbers, Momma’s Blues and the Starlight Sequence.

And whoever thought of casting Greaseball as a female character needs to take a short walk from the theatre and spend some time (safely) by the West Coast Main Line. Here, diesel freight trains frequently rumble by with a booming bass pulse that could register on the Richter Scale! Having driven a diesel train I can vouch that they throb with a guttural, metaphorical testosterone. For all Al Knott’s fiercely fit and fabulously menacing skating, she may well make an outstanding pantomime villain, but a diesel engine she ain’t!

Of the show’s principal characters, too many of them are professional debutantes. Skating of course requires the enviable fitness and stamina of their youth, however the very best musical theatre also demands the skill of being able to act through song, a craft typically honed by an actor’s years of experience. With many of director Luke Sheppard’s leads fresh out of drama school, their roller-skating may well be energetically en-pointe but they do not always deliver emotionally convincing characters. Richard Stilgoe’s U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D. sung by Dinah the Dining Car (Eve Humphrey) and a pastiched tribute to country-music legend Tammy Wynette, should be one of the wittiest songs in the canon. Here, it fails to land.

A shout-out however for Skate Marshals Charlie Russell, Jamie Addison and Dante Hutchison whose scooter skills (including scooted 360-degree somersaults) are out of this world.

Technically state-of the-art, Starlight Express looks and sounds like the multi-million pound extravaganza that the producers and creatives have fashioned. The kids will love it!

Booking until 16th February 2025

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Back To The Future The Musical - Review

Adelphi Theatre, London

*****

Music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard

Book by Bob Gale

Directed by John Rando

Olly Dobson

In a dramatic gesture matched only in magnitude by the invention of the flux capacitor itself, so have the cast and creative team behind Back To The Future The Musical delivered one of the best new musicals to hit the West End in recent years.

Bravely opening as the pandemic (hopefully) fades, the Adelphi was packed to a cheering audience savouring a show that wasn’t just based upon a classic 1985 movie but which takes that film’s narrative to a fourth dimension amidst a veritable nuclear-powered fusion of effects wizardry, video projection, and good old-fashioned human talent.

It’s not just a tough gig to set a science-fiction yarn to music, Back To The Future also demands of its leads that they can inhabit characters including the leads that were so memorably brought to life on screen by Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox . This show however pulls it off with an inspired casting that sees accomplished Broadway actor Roger Bart create the stage version of Doc Brown. Opposite Bart, Olly Dobson is equally convincing as teenage time-traveller Marty McFly.

Nearly 40 years old, the story is a classic. Marty gets sent back in time 30 years by the madcap inventor Brown, where he stumbles across his pre-marital parents. And as his youthfully gorgeous mother Lorraine (Rosanna Hyland) falls for the new kid in town, unaware of course that he is her son, it is down to Marty and the (younger, naturally) Doc to engineer the plot that sees Lorraine fall for her unlikely suitor George McFly, so that in time the pair can marry and beget Marty… 

Roger Bart

Throughout, the acting is flawless, not least with Hugh Coles’ George McFly, a veritable masterpiece of physical comedy. Coles’ perfect interpretation of the hapless George delivers not only perfectly timed hilarity but also immaculately pitched nuance that must surely stand him in good stead when the Olivier for Best Supporting Actor is being considered. There is pathos too in the bond between Marty and the Doc - again, never milked, just perfectly pitched.

And, for the most part, the show’s new songs are also rather clever. In a time when new musical theatre writing can often disappoint, the numbers created here combine humour and passion together with perfectly pitched insight into the human condition. Hello - Is Anybody Home? as Marty gazes despairingly at his (1985) family, is matched in wit by his (youthful) dad’s My Myopia. Whichever of Silvestri or Ballard thought to rhyme myopia with utopia is another deeply talented soul.

Actors and lyrics aside, Back To The Future has always been about the car! So much more than just a ripping yarn, what is needed here has been the translation of a 20th century blockbuster movie crammed full of (non-CGI) special effects and squeezing it into the confines of a proscenium arch, beyond which is a theatre brimming with the expectations of a tech-savvy 21st century audience.

Director John Rando pulls off this task magnificently – aided by Tim Hatley’s design work, Chris Fisher’s illusions, Finn Ross outstanding video projections (Doc Brown’s climbing of the clock tower towards the show’s finale is a hilarious coup-de-theatre in itself!), Gareth Owen’s sound design and Tim Lutkin’s lighting. The staging is imaginative, stunning and clearly expensive – everything that a big West End show should be – and, above all, imaginative. There will be no spoilers in this review – just go and savour what these guys manage to do with a classy company of actors and a DeLorean. (And if this 2021 iteration of the story sees those pesky Libyan terrorists from 1985 get canned in the name of politically correct progress, well hey that's showbiz!)

Jim Henson’s 14 piece band make fine work of the newly scored stuff – theres a great leitmotif running through the show that is a nod to the movie – with the more recent songs standing up well to the timeless gems of Johnny B. Goode and Huey Lewis’ The Power Of Love. The dancework is wonderfully tight too, with choreographer Chris Bailey lobbing in some wonderful moments of pastiche that only add to the evening's splendour.  

It says much for London as a global centre of theatre that the producers have chosen to workshop and launch this All-American show over here and with a predominantly British company of cast and creatives. As soon as circumstances make it possible and profitable, the show deserves a swift transfer across the Atlantic. 

Throughout, Back To The Future The Musical exceeds expectations, consistently delivering excellence in acting, song, dance, and oh, those effects.  Family entertainment in musical theatre does not get better than this. Just go!

Booking until 1st July 2022

Photo credit: Sean Ebsworth Barnes

Singin' In The Rain - Review

Theatre du Châtelet at the Grand Palais, Paris

*****

Music by Nacio Herb Brown

Lyrics by Arthur Freed

Book by Adolph Green and Betty Comden

Directed by Robert Carsen

Dan Burton

Fittingly, the reviewing year has ended in the grandest of styles at Paris’ Grand Palais to where the city’s illustrious Theatre du Châtelet have temporarily decamped, reviving their 2015 production of Singin’ In The Rain. A "Grand" venue demands an equally grand show to fill it, and with their sensational company Robert Carsen and choreographer Stephen Mear have done just that.

The musical’s story is a 1952 movie classic that was only ever brought to the stage some 30 years later by Tommy Steele at the London Palladium. But with a libretto crammed with American Songbook greats, an evening here feels like revisiting a masterpiece that’s straight out of Broadway’s Golden Age. The plot is as heartfelt as it is corny, set in the 1920s as silent movies are on the wane. The demand for talkies engulfs Hollywood and Lina Lamont, Monumental Pictures' starlet silent siren finds herself challenged by her ghastly squawking voice, a sound that is completely at odds with her stunning physical beauty. Monumental's leading man Don Lockwood fortuitously meets the beautifully voiced Kathy Selden who agrees to dub Lamont’s vocals. Scheming shenanigans famously unfold, for the most part inspired by Lockwood’s cunning musical accompanist Cosmo Brown, until a happy ending prevails with Selden and Lockwood falling blissfully in love.

Monique Young and Dan Burton

If a show with such a slight and clichéd story is to speak to a 21st century audience, then its production values can be nothing less than flawless and (by implication) expensive. With the Mayor of Paris happily associated with the show, it appears that the budget has been substantial. Not only has Tim Hatley’s scenery been beautifully designed for the show, the stage itself has been created within the vast, glass dome of the Grand Palais (google the place, you’ll thank me) and it is a credit to both Hatley and the show’s (uncredited) sound designer that the acoustics are perfect. Likewise, Anthony Powell’s costumes are just sumptuous, dripping in period-perfect Flapper-glamour and crafted with minute attention to detail. Wielding the baton, Gareth Valentine (another Châtelet regular) makes magnificent work of Brown’s melodies.

Dan Burton leads as Lockwood. Returning to the role from 2015, Burton is clearly Stephen Mear’s “go to” triple-threat performer. This website has long praised Burton’s talent and in a role that sees him onstage for most of the show Burton makes the most intricate of moves seem effortless, with mellifluous vocals transforming 70-year old tunes into fresh delights. And when it comes to the famous title number, both the Châtelet company and Burton deliver magnificently. The water cascades onto the stage as Burton pays heartfelt homage to Gene Kelly’s immortal routine. A nod too to Jo Morris, who has worked with the company to faithfully recreate Mear’s choreography of two years ago.

Kathy Selden is played by Monique Young who wowed this Paris audience last year as Peggy Sawyer in 42nd Street. In another display of triple-threat magnificence, Young defines Selden’s tender strength. Her takes on You Are My Lucky Star and Would You? mark her out as a gifted performer of classic numbers, while her footwork (notably stunning in Broadway Melody) is a blur of brilliance.

Emma Kate Nelson

Playing one of the more challenging roles in the canon, Emma Kate Nelson is Lina Lamont. This nasty-girl character could barely be shallower, yet Nelson transforms her into a completely credible creation. Lamont’s one solo number, What’s Wrong With Me, can be a beast to sing for a trained performer trying to preserve her voice as she squawks. Nelson makes it a delight in another example of perfect casting.

There's excellence too from Daniel Crossley’s Cosmo Brown. Cosmo’s comic responsibilities are critical to the narrative and Crossley’s timing in both physical and spoken humour is spot-on. Make ‘em Laugh and a wealth of other moments all contribute to comedy gold. There are other gems that lurk within this company as Jennie Dale (playing dialogue coach Miss Dinsmore) earns a rapturous whoop of applause for her deft display of tap dance in Moses Supposes.

Daniel Crossley, Jennie Dale and Dan Burton

Theatre du Châtelet have a deserved reputation for excellence in their annual presentation of a classic English language musical - they simply set out to hire, and to produce, the best in the business. If only a UK producer were to one day ship a Châtelet show back across the Channel......

Runs until 11th January

Photo credits: Vincent Pontet and Marie-Noëlle Robert

The Pajama Game

Chichester Festival Theatre

***

Music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross
Book by George Abbott and Richard Bissell
Directed by Richard Eyre

The Chichester Festival Theatre has a grand track record in producing five star musicals. With Sweeney Todd and Singing In The Rain having recently enjoyed successful transfers to the West End, the  expectations for Richard Eyre’s The Pajama Game, run high indeed. Sadly however, the press night reports of this show’s excellence turn out to have been great exaggerations.

Eyre established his credentials as a musical theatre director with Guys and Dolls at the National Theatre in 1982. That inspired vision, matched with a creative team to die for, stunned London. Whilst The Pajama Game does not sit as high in the musical theatre canon as the Frank Loesser epic, it offered Eyre similar potential that has frankly been squandered in what at times seems to be little more than an odd tribute to his Guys and Dolls triumph. There is scene-setting neon, a big Latin dance number, the lampooning of American culture and Eyre has even gone so far as to hire his Sarah Brown from the 1996 revival, Joanna Riding, who when she leans back in the arms of Hadley Fraser, still shows that elegantly profiled poise of the sergeant from the Save A Soul mission.

But this is The Pajama Game, a moderately corny piece albeit with its heart in the right place, that against a backdrop of conflict between unionised pyjama workers and their corrupt employer creates an unlikely love story between factory superintendent and the boss’ right hand man, Sorokin (played by Fraser) and his adversary, the union rep Babe Williams (Joanna Riding's role).

Pippa Ailion who cast the show has a lot to answer for. Whilst Riding looks downright gorgeous for her age and her singing and movement are perfect, she is by some years Fraser’s senior. The chemistry betwixt these two thus seems at best improbable and at worst, forced. The other minor love interest of the show is between factory time keeper Hines and office secretary Gladys. Peter Polycarpou’s Hines is a scene stealer. This outstanding actor’s voice and timing are perfect and the farcical moment when his trousers fall down is eye-wateringly funny. Alexis Owen-Hobbs however, who plays the glamorous Gladys, (un)fortunately looks young enough to be his daughter. This is a credit to her beauty, matched also by her talent, but it does nonetheless provoke disbelief that a young woman could date such a visibly older guy. Hadley Fraser’s voice is dreamy and his delivery of Hey There (You With The Stars In Your Eyes) is a spine tingling rendition of the classic, but whilst he sure can sing, his acting on the night seems flat. The final failing of the show is the choreography. The big dance number of Hernando’s Hideaway seemed at best sloppy and un-drilled and the act two opener, Steam Heat, with Gladys and two factory men, evolves into a slick tap routine that is brilliantly performed but needs a lot more of the company tap dancing on stage to fully achieve the song’s spectacular potential. In an age that has just witnessed a revival of Irving Berlin's Top Hat, to have just three people tap-dancing smacks of micro-budgetted constraint that can surely not be the case at Chichester?

Eugene McCoy’s Prez and Jenna Boyd’s Mae are excellent in support and creatively Tim Hatley’s design, Jack Galloway’s costumes and Linda McKnight’s wig work all add perfectly to establishing the show’s location and period. Credit too to Gareth Valentine’s band who provide a beautiful sounding and perfectly balanced backing to the show.

There is talk of The Pajama Game following that now well-worn path up the A3 to a London transfer. That would be inhumane. This production, as it stands, should be allowed to gracefully see out its days amongst the retirement homes of England’s South Coast. It’s a touch more pants than pajamas.

Runs to June 8 2013

The Bodyguard - A New Musical

Adelphi Theatre, London

****

Based on the Warner Bros. Film

Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan

Book by Alexander Dinelaris

Directed by Thea Sharrock



Mark Letheren as Rachel Marron's stalker



The Bodyguard at London’s Adelphi Theatre has been around for almost three months and played this week to a reassuringly packed house on a wintry Thursday night. Alexander Dinelarishas has taken Lawrence Kasdan’s twenty year old screenplay that was embellished with the starring roles of singer Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner as the gun hired to protect her and filleted it down to a staged tale, taking not only a few (modest) liberties with the storyline but also cannily identifying moments along his story’s journey to liberally add in Houston’s hits at any available opportunity. And do you know what? It's a little corny, but it works!

The story broadly follows fictional singer Rachel Marron and her family and entourage and how following the receipt of crazed threats, a skilled bodyguard is hired for the close protection of the star. Any more detail would spoil a good show. If you know the film, expect a few surprises and if you are new to the tale then expect an entertaining ride with a few thrills and spills and the occasional tear too.

The American actress Heather Headley is headlined as starring as Marron. Not so well known in the UK, her Broadway credentials are impeccable. However, it was with a little initial (and short lived) disappointment that we learned that Gloria Onitiri was to take the lead at the performance reviewed here. The cast list states Onitiri as an Ensemble member, yet her detailed bio in the programme describes her as Alternate Rachel Marron. We subsequently learned that she regularly covers for Headley in what is clearly a demanding role. Note to producers : If you regularly have an alternate playing a lead role, then do what Phantom Of The Opera have done for the last 25 years and own up to the fact on your posters and publicity. The honesty does you no harm. Rant over, back to the talent.

Onitiri is quite frankly an unexpected diamond in a glittering show. Her take on Houston’s hits that are sung exquisitely. She was all of rock star, diva, mom and woman-in-love, performed with a gorgeous sound. Her climactic number, Houston's signature hit I Will Always Love You that is an absolute roller-coaster of a song soaring from intimate to epic, was spine tingling. Lloyd Owen as bodyguard Frank Farmer is a turn that is strong and credible. The professional demands of his character demand modest understatement and a performance that is mostly sardonic and laconic. Farmer is allocated few songs in the show (a wise call as a singing bodyguard could well send an audience’s suspended disbelief crashing to the ground) but his rare tuneful moment raises a knowing smile amongst an audience familiar with the tale. The other stunning chanteuse of the night is Debbie Kurup, playing Marron’s sister Nicki. Her delivery of Saving All My Love is exquisite and when she duets with Onitiri, the close harmony work is West End vocal perfection.

Thea Sharrock directs on Tim Hatley’s imaginatively designed set. I suspect the producers have not only an eye on a Broadway opening for the show, but Vegas too, as the classic hits, glitzy sets and not too demanding storyline, will go down well in Nevada’s Sin City. Richard Beadle’s band deliver a very polished and authentic sound ( the delicate guitar lead in to I Will Always Love You was a joy) and for a night of top production values in song and dance, The Bodyguard is another shining example of what makes London the theatre capital of the world.

 

Booking until September 2013