DREAMGIRLS at the Savoy - "Every man has his own special dream..."

...and that dream has finally come true.

Back in 1982 when I was queueing up overnight for front-row seats for GUYS AND DOLLS at the National Theatre (yes Constant Reader, ALL roads lead back to that life-changing production) a conversation was started with an American chap who had heard that this was not only *the* production to see in London but that Julia McKenzie was giving *the* performance to see.  He likened this to DREAMGIRLS in New York and Jennifer Holiday playing the role of 'Effie White'.

The more he talked the more I thought "Oh wow" I need to see this" and figured that it would probably pop up in London by 1983.  But no... there was no transfer - could it have been that although it won 6 Tony Awards it didn't win for the all-important Best Musical, Best Score or Best Director?  Later in the 1990s I would find out possibly the real reason.  I worked for an actor's agent named Ann Molloy and she attempted to secure the rights for a one-off performance for AIDS charities but to no avail.  Eventually she was told that the rights holders felt there was no comparable talent in the UK to do the show justice.  So there you go...

What I did have however was the original cast recording, a recording so stupendous that it is the highest placed Broadway Cast Recording on the Billboard 200 chart in recent years and won two Grammy Awards, for Best Cast Recording and for Jennifer Holliday's titanic vocal on "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going".  This incendiary performance still bursts out of the recording, taking no prisoners in it's wake.  My DREAMGIRLS fix was added to when also in the 1990s I heard a sound-desk copy of the actual show and realized how much of the score was missing from the album.

Of course my addiction was mostly fulfilled when Bill Condon's screen version was released in 2006, I had suspected that it would never be as good as I wanted but of course it triumphed on all counts and now finally... a theatre production arrives in London, directed by in-demand director Casey Nicholaw and produced by the equally in-demand producer Sonia Friedman. 

I booked as soon as the box office opened for the Wednesday after Christmas, just before they announced that the role of 'Effie' would be played by GLEE star Amber Riley who would not be playing on Wednesdays.  Oh how I smiled during the confrontation scene when Effie is sacked when the accusation is hurled that she is a diva who can't sustain...

Our 'Effie' was Karen Mav in what appears to be her acting debut having become famous in last year's "The X Factor".  Needless to say that gave me worries but she was actually quite good and sang the hell out of her songs.

What must be said is that Casey Nicolaw has directed a wonderful show; deliciously fluid and slick, his production moved at a faster rate than even the film managed.  Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger's score sounded wonderful and it was great to see how their songs really do move the action forward while illuminating the character singing it.  I found it interesting too that with four new songs written for the film, only one has been interpolated into the show.  There is a rewritten version of LISTEN which had been Beyoncé's big solo for the film but here it is used as a duet for Effie and Deena when they meet again and reaffirm their friendship.

The show looks excellent too thanks to Tim Hatley's set design, Gregg Barnes' costumes and Hugh Vanstone's lighting while Nicholaw's choreography was slinky for the girls, muscular for the lads.  Unlike the film which really overdid the Motown connection by slavishly copying album covers and famous photo sessions for both The Supremes and Diana Ross, Barnes' costumes were more generic.

But something stopped me LOVING the show as much as I feel I should have done.  Maybe the film really has stolen it's thunder as in retrospect I can see how faithful it was to Tom Eyen's original book - the film's obvious building up of James 'Thunder' Early, Curtis Taylor and Deena Jones' roles for Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé's roles are the only noticeable changes - but I think what really put a break on my enjoyment was seeing the Menier's SHE LOVES ME five days before; it's a show that has real warmth in it's book and score whereas DREAMGIRLS ultimately felt like a glorious firework display; spectacular to experience but a bit hollow at heart.

What I also found surprising was the 'meh' quality of the cast - all very nice but where were the fireworks?  Even if it is cast down to build up the Amber Riley, could we not have given Effie a more effective counterpoint than Liisi LaFontaine as Deena?  She has little personalty and no real heft vocally.  The intriguingly-named Ibinabo Jack had more fun with Lorrell, getting laughs and applause for her big number.

The stand-out in the cast was Adam J Bernard as James 'Thunder' Early who had just the right volcanic energy to make him steal whatever scenes he was in.  Joe Aaron Reid was imposing in height as the devilish Curtis Taylor Jr. but was still a bit lightweight sadly.

As we left, Owen suggested maybe a return visit might be in order to see if Amber Riley can maybe ignite the show properly but the news that there is now a THIRD alternate for 'Effie' been cast - the American actress Marisha Wallace who has already played the role in a Dallas production - means it would be now even more of a crapshoot to see her.

It sounds like Martine McCutcheon and MY FAIR LADY all over again...  turn up for the press-night, get the reviews then no doubt have lengthy wrestles with laryngitis.  Not that the audience minded on the night we went - they came prepared to scream at anything and everything.

Despite all this I am glad to finally have seen it onstage, it only took 34 years!

GUYS AND DOLLS - Following GYPSY from Chichester to London...

You can almost hear the owners of the Savoy Theatre when they realised that Imelda Staunton in GYPSY was such a massive success, calling up the Chichester Festival Theatre and saying "Um.. you don't have any more like that do you?"  Luckily for them they did, namely their 2014 revival of GUYS AND DOLLS - which is now playing the Savoy until next March.

There might still be someone in Buttkick, Idaho that does not know that the 1982 National Theatre production directed by Richard Eyre was the production that turned me into a huge theatre fan but it's true.  That production captured me and made me it's own, and while I have seen a few revivals since that have seemed almost cowed by the status of both the musical itself and the NT production, the good news is that I enjoyed Gordon Greenberg's Chichester production enough to want to see it again in it's London transfer.

Yes there are still times that I wonder how such an obvious laughline can be overlooked or mis-handled, yes I can wonder why the orchestrations are sometimes seeming to rush through the songs almost as if embarrassed at the score's riches and yes, sometimes I wonder why the performers sometimes attack the roles like a rugby prop-forward when if they could just relax into it the laughs will come, they just need to trust the material more.

In the transfer to London a key cast change has given the production a new lease of life, namely David Haig as Nathan Detroit.  He has invigorated it and given the scenes involving Nathan and Adelaide a new weight where as in Chichester the show was seemingly all about Jamie Parker's Sky Masterson.

Haig gives his man-nearing-the-end-of-his-tether routine a new shake of the dice and presents us with a Nathan that we can care for and he has a perfect foil in Sophie Thompson's Miss Adelaide. Although still not showing the vulnerable heart of the character, Sophie's performance prompted a huge ovation again at the curtain call which was lovely to witness!

Jamie Parker is still ruling the roost as Sky Masterson and he is now partnered by Siubhan Harrison who certainly captures the steel in Sister Sarah but - like Clare Foster in Chichester - doesn't quite show the girl beneath the Missionary uniform.

The supporting cast all work well with Neil McCaul excelling as a Gorbals Arvide Abernathy and Gavin Spokes certainly seizes his big moment in "Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat" which now also pops up at the curtain call for a tambourine-friendly encore.

A major component of the show is Peter McKintosh's bright and colourful set of shards of Times Square billboards and Tim Mitchell's lighting design.  I must admit that I again found Carlos Acosta's much-vaunted choreography to be fairly uninspiring and lacking focus.

Coming away from the show I felt very proud that I had the good fortune to start my real theatre-going life with such a bona fide Broadway classic.  33 years on, it is a measure of Richard Eyre's production that while watching this revival, I can still half-close my eyes and see Ian Charleson, Julie Covington, Bob Hoskins, Julia McKenzie, David Healy, John Normington, Bill Paterson, Jim Carter, Harry Towb, Belinda Sinclair, Rachel Izen and that new doll to the London stage, Imelda Staunton.

However, even without those ghosts in the memory, you will have a great time at the Savoy...

GYPSY - now at the Savoy

Before my birthday trip to Paris - oh yes Constant Reader, I have been to Paris - I had the fabulous chance to see Jonathan Kent's revival of the classic Broadway musical GYPSY which we saw last year at Chichester.  It has now transferred to the Savoy Theatre so more people can experience the thrill of seeing Imelda Staunton's magnificent performance as archetypal stage mother Mama Rose.

I blogged about the show last year (re-read it here) but somehow Imelda's already great performance has got even better!  Scorching the silver Savoy paintwork with her act-closing solos of EVERYTHING'S COMING UP ROSES and ROSE'S TURN, Imelda seems to have dug down into Rose's character and, while still the driven and argumentative woman blind to her children's real needs, she also reveals the inner Rose - a woman damaged by her own absent mother and who has become emotionally shellacked to deflect any more hurt.  As Herbie rightfully describes her, she is "a frontier woman without a frontier". 

One of the many strengths of GYPSY is it's magnificent book by Arthur Laurents which provides the jumping off point for the actresses playing Rose and Louise but without the emotional truth of director Jonathan Kent and Imelda Staunton, the characters can sometimes come across as unlikeable.

But not here, Staunton's Rose and Lara Pulver's Louise are vibrantly human and their final confrontation scene is a titanic clash that is all too painful.  Lara Pulver is quite marvellous as the neglected Louise, all too aware of her lack of talent but who parlays that into becoming her own special creation Gypsy Rose Lee, the classy burlesque queen.

Kevin Whateley has vanished during the move from Chichester to the Savoy and Herbie is now played by Peter Davidson in a fairly anonymous performance which is the one disappointment of the production.

And of course there is the glorious score by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim which, 56 years on, sounds as fresh and magnificent as ever, especially under the music direction and new orchestration of Nicholas Skilbeck.

One of the score's great showstoppers did just that!  Mazeppa, Electra and Tessie Tura, the frowzy, hard-bitten strippers in a seedy Wichita burlesque theatre, stop their squabbling to teach Louise the most important rule of stripping YOU GOTTA GET A GIMMICK and Louise Gold, Julie Legrand and Anita Louise Combe rightfully earned a huge ovation.  Louise Gold is also covering the role of Mama Rose... now *that* would be something to see.

A special mention must go to Gemma Sutton's disgruntled Baby June and Dan Burton's Tulsa who dances the heck out of ALL I NEED IS THE GIRL.

It has just been announced that the production's run is being extended to Nov 28th - but why wait?  Book now!

Last week I ventured into the pinkest place possible. No Constant Reader... even pinker that that.

O's bro and sis-in-law were in town which was the spur needed to go to the Savoy to see LEGALLY BLONDE, the latest show that is slowly turning the West End into a living version of a dvd shelf in your average HMV.On arrival it soon became clear that the show is now an event - there were quite a few groups of pink-stetsoned, balloon-trailing larger-sized women out on a jolly. Needless to say, if it moved it got a round of wild applause.

Through careful maneuvering I have managed not to see the original film so I was unfamiliar with the actual plot though of course these sausage-in-a-greenhouse tales write themselves.

Like the similar-themed SISTER ACT it goes like this

• take your sassy, noisy heroine - here uber-girly Elle Woods
• waste no time setting up your situ - dumped by posh boyfriend for better class girl
• then re-locate - Elle gets into Harvard Law School after a few nights cramming. Yes.
• triumph in new situ - Elle wins a court case on her knowledge of hair care
• cop off with quiet guy - the show ends with Elle loved up with Emmett from her class

Now I realise I am flying in the face of all opinion of this - that it's FUN FUN FUN - but feck me it's also THIN THIN THIN.

Again like SISTER ACT, it is in such a rush to keep moving on, on, on - just in case the film-loving audience will riot in the theatre because they can't fast-forward the action - that it's like you are watching a non-ending trailer. Just once - once - I wanted it to stop and just be... give us a minute to connect, to feel some empathy.

Ah you say, but Elle is just a cartoon-y dumb blonde, but compare - for a very obvious reason - Audrey in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS who through the clever placement of "Somewhere That's Green" in the middle of the first act gives you a moment to stop and feel real empathy for the character. Elle is given no solo number in the first act, no point of genuine connection.

Mind you, it helps when you have a song like "...Green". In all the reviews I have read variations on "The score is not too memorable but..." But? BUT?? It's a musical damnit - the score should be the most important element of the show.

Owen thought all the songs sounded like rejects from WICKED and I can agree with that - they all sound like pastiche Broadway songs and the arrival late-on of a superfluous but original patter-song "There! Right There" aka the "Gay or European" song sadly only shows the opportunities lost. Even more so as this is followed up with the show's title song which gives us the stupidest use of a title in a song ever.

What makes the show a success however is the game performances of the cast. Peter Davison was quite effective as the nasty Law lecturer but Richard Fleeshman almost seemed to fade from the stage as you watched him. However Alex Gaumond as Emmett has an interesting quality on stage, his timing was a bit slow, a bit Schwimmer-esque so he always seemed a bit out-of-step with the rhythm of the scenes which I guess helped the character.

I have to say the biggest surprise of the show was the delightful supporting performance from Jill Halfpenny as that most tiresome of devices the loved-and-lost best friend. She had a great American accent and invested this sadsack part with immense charm - her eventual hooking up with Chris Ellis-Stanton's studly UPS man was sweetly done.

But of course the show is a vehicle for Elle and I suspect the real reason for the show's SRO status is down to Sheridan Smith.She deserved her standing ovation - of course - at the curtain for making the show as enjoyable as it was although she ultimately wasn't doing anything she hadn't done a few years back in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.

However she has developed into that rare thing - a gifted comedy performer who is also an excellent musical actress and an undeniable theatre star. It's 12 years ago since I first saw her as Red Riding Hood in the Donmar revival of INTO THE WOODS and it's great that she has continued to return to the theatre despite her success in television.

I just wish the show had given us something other than a relentless diet of e-numbers. Too much pink icing can lead to theatrical diabetes.