In recent decades, numerous musical have arrived in London with outsized production values swamping the material, leading critics to wish for time machines so that they can fast-forward to the inev…
— the Musical” is not one of those shows. Despite its many flaws, not least a merely serviceable score, Tim Hatley’s stunning, multi-dimensional design — thrillingly meshing physical production, lighting, projection, sound and hydraulics — lifts what threatened to be a movie retread into a live entertainment triumph.
Even before the lights go down, it’s clear that this production is intent on making spectacle respectable, with giant LED display panels rising up from above the proscenium and out and across the walls of the orchestra. But the initial excitement is sandbagged by the opening sequences. Every cast member acts like the winner of a lookalike competition, complete with every move and mannerism of their movie counterpart. And too many of them have been directed to play out to the audience, so much so that they barely stop short at winking at us. For all the neatness, expectations begin to founder. Until, that is, the arrival of the car.
The pastiche songs work best, as when Lorraine falls for “Calvin” and a girl group trio pops up from behind the curtains to accompany her. But otherwise, the songs are more pop than theater. Instead of deepening or driving forward, they state and re-state a case, with anodyne and/or mis-stressed lyrics: “I can’t wait to be/ In the twenty-first cent-u-ry” — which is a number of knowing nonsense put there solely to open the second act.
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