The Chichester Festival Theatre have provided the West End with a series of hit musicals in recent years including SINGING IN THE RAIN and Imelda Staunton in SWEENY TODD and GYPSY and the forthcoming GUYS AND DOLLS.
Their latest offering MACK AND MABLE, starring much loved leading man Michael Ball, looks set to follow the pattern so expect it in London soon.
It’s enjoyed some terrific reviews in Chichester before it embarks on a short regional tour.
However despite this revival’s success the show is still being criticised for a script that has never quite worked and propelled the show to classic status.
It’s set in 1920’s Hollywood and a concerns a fiery, on-off love affair between the bullying, insensitive producer Mack Senate and the drug addicted movie star, Mable Norman. The trouble is they’re both rather unlikeable making it hard to care. The dark drama of this has also always sat uneasily amongst a series of high kicking, high cheese (and rather glorious) chorus numbers.
The piece probably would have disappeared into obscurity if it weren’t for the fact that Olympic ice skaters Torville and Dean once performed to one of the best numbers, I Won’t Send Roses, generating interest in the original musical.
Of the current revival Michael Billington of the Guardian has reported "It fails once again the dramatic test of making a convincing journey of its true-life story of its two title characters”
But he and most of the other critics have praised the performances of Ball and Broadway import Rebecca LaChance in the role of Mabel (Who played Carole King in BEAUTIFUL in NYC)
Superstar choreographer, Stephen Mear has once again got everyone’s heart racing with his high energy, inventive choreography in what The Stage’s critic Mark Shenton describes as “a tuneful parade of great songs and sheer spectacle”
Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph invites us to “Cherish the warmth of spirit... reflected in Herman's characteristically lush score and charming lyrics."
He reports that “LaChance is a beautiful fit for an accidental starlet who instinctively knows how to widen her eyes in exaggerated terror at moustachioed villains but refuses to play the part of obliging wall-flower in real-life."
Billington writes of Ball’s performance: "Ball, looking oddly like a young Orson Welles, not only captures Sennett's obsessive devotion to comedy but sings with magisterial power."
I can’t wait to review it for you when it inevitably comes to London.
The multi award-winning production of Miss Saigon has announced that it will play its final performance in the West End on 27 February 2016.