
John Partridge as smooth talking lawyer Billy
Flynn. Pictures: Catherine Ashmore
Chicago - The musical
Wolverhampton Grand
****
WHAT a cracker of a show, and all that
jazz, taking you on a sparkling trip back to the Roaring Twenties.
They say life begins at 40 and this latest
production has certainly injected new life into this 41-year-old show
making it as slick and sprightly as ever.
It’s sexy, sassy, funny, easy on the eye and two
and a half hours just flies by in a whirl of razzle dazzle
entertainment.
The show is based on a
1926 play by Maurine Dallas Watkins which in turn was based on her days
as a reporter on The Chicago Tribune
at a time when there was a public fascination with murderesses, turning
them into celebrities. It was a time when pretty and sexy was halfway to
acquittal . . . and a new career.
And Velma Kelly is both, the pretty, sexy star of
the joint, accused of killing her boyfriend and her sister in the
ultimate in coitus interruptus – not that having done the crime meant
doing time when silver tongued defence lawyer Billy Flynn was around, at
$5,000 a pop.
Sophie Carmen-Jones, who has an impressive West
End CV, is a confident, feisty, Velma, a woman whose main interest in
life is . . . well Velma, really. She’s the only one she cares about.
And when it comes to confident there is Billy
Flynn, who can generate more spin than Shane Warne in turning murder
defendants into victims so that acquittal is the very least that a jury
can do to help them.
John Partridge is
perhaps best known for playing Christian Clarke in
EastEnders,
the power of TV, but has a long history of West End musicals behind him
and lends a handsome, easy charm to Flynn, who along with Matron Mama
Morton, the prison boss, played with a jolly air of corruption by Sam
Bailey, has a lucrative cabaret career mapped out for Velma after she is
acquitted.
Sam, incidentally, can’t half belt a song out.
Sam Bailey as Mama Morton and Sophie Carmen-Jones as
Velma Kelly
The cosy arrangement is
all set up, or was before the arrival of Roxie Hart in the shape of
Hayley Tamaddon who was Andrea Beckett in
Coronation Street
and Del Dingle in Emmerdale.
She also won ITV’s Dancing on Ice but is another with West End
experience including The Lady of the Lake in
Spamalot.
She gives us a lively, self-centred Roxie, with
an ego as big as Velma’s and an attitude to match, mind you her
ventriloquist’s dummy sequence with Billy is as funny and slick as I
have seen it. She adds adultery to murder to make her the new public
celebrity No 1.
And then there is Andy . . . sorry, Amos Hart,
played by Neil Ditt. He is the sad creature who found himself married to
Roxie and would do anything to save her from the gallows – until he
finds she is having a baby that could not possibly be his by several
months. Even then she can persuade him he is the father, exposing a gap
in his basic knowledge of maths or biology or both.
Amos’s big moment is
his despairing solo Mister Cellophane,
the man nobody notices, beautifully sung by Ditt – for anyone who
happened to be listening.
Leading the Press pack is Mary Sunshine, who
can
be persuaded, by Billy of course, to find the good in anyone, played
with a surprising revelation by A D Richardson. If you have seen Chicago
you already know, if not? Well if we told you it wouldn’t be a surprise.
And around them is good
support from the rest of the cast giving us policemen, district
attorneys, judges, juries, reporters, victims and fellow prisoners with
some superb choreography based on the original by the late Bob Fosse,
from Ann Reinking and Gary Chryst. It’s slick, sexy, seductive and at
times sees the excellent dancers moving not only in unison but as one
unit. There is also a nice nod to Busby Berkeley in Billy Flynn’s big
number, All I care about,
all long legs and ostrich feather fans.
Gottle of geer: Hayley Tamaddon
as Roxie lets Billy Flynn do all the
talking
This Fred Ebb and John Kander musical demands an
orchestra to do justice to the jazzy, vaudeville songs and music which
is provided superbly by the lads in the Cell Block H band dominating the
stage; ten strong with drums, brass, reeds, double bass, piano and even
a banjo under musical director, and at times the MC, Ben Atkinson, they
recreate the music of the era beautifully and seem to be enjoying
themselves all night long, especially when they let rip with their part
pieces at the start of Act 2.
John Lee Beatty’s design is still interesting
with its raked bandstand heading up into the flies dominating the stage.
Scene changes are instant for the simple reason that apart from a few
chairs here and there, there is nothing to change, no pauses, nothing to
interrupt the flow while William Ivey Long’s costume designs are still
sexy, daring with just a hint of debauchery about them
If you have never seen Cabaret then this is a
chance to see what the fuss is about and if you have seen it before,
this is a chance to see an old friend in particulalry good form. To
25-06-16
Roger Clarke
20-06-16
As a word of caution allow a little extra
time as the Grand has instigated security checks with bag searches at
the doors which means queues and delays to admission.
This production of Chicago returns to the West
Midlands from 12-31 December at The New Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham.
And in the next cell block
****
STAFF were checking handbags and manbags
of people arriving at the theatre in a security operation, but they
might have found more weapons if they had frisked the cast of this
all-action musical.
The stage was packed with very attractive but
dangerous women, behind bars for murdering partners in the story built
round the crafty skills of defence lawyer Billy Flynn.
Packed with fine songs and terrific dancing to
the slick, original choreography of the legendary Bob Fosse, the show is
dynamic and sexy, with a generous helping of drama, tragedy and humour.
John Partridge, of EastEnders fame, proves a
convincing Flynn, using his links with newspaper reporters to build
public sympathy for some of the murderous females, particularly Roxie
Hart, inside for gunning down her lover and upsetting the notorious
fellow inmate, Velma Kelly.
Hayley Tamaddon is impressive as Roxie and shares
a particularly entertaining scene with Partridge when he uses her in the
fashion of a ventriloquist’s puppet to provide the correct answers to
questions from the press.
Sophie Carmen-Jones is excellent, too, as Velma
Kelly, while Neil Ditt makes a special impact as the hapless Amos Hart,
long –suffering husband of Roxie, with the emotional song, Mister
Cellophane, Sam Bailey is in great voice as prison matron ‘Mama’ Morton,
and A.D.Richardson is a surprise packet in the role of columnist Mary
Sunshine.
Paul Marston
|