NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL A MUSICAL

Now That’s What I Call Music started life as a series of vinyl records filled with pop chart hits, the songs that if you grew up in the 70s, 80s and 90s would have been the soundtrack to your adolescence. Basing a stage musical around one era was bound to have huge appeal to generations of people who grew up at the height of pop music and, even if they were not your own soundtrack, you would still know the tunes, the stuff of weddings and discos for years to come and even to this date. Hence the audience, of very mixed ages, would know every number. Sure fire success? Absolutely darling!!! as director and choreographer Craig Revel Horwood would say, and what a simply brilliant job he has done in bringing this delicious confection to life. And I use those words with respect. Over the years of doing this I have seen many many so called jukebox musicals drag their weary way across stages, some decent but many tired vehicles strung around music and clinging for dear life to the thinnest of plots.

Well this one sets the bar very high for what may follow. The plot, well it’s charming enough, childhood friends whose lives diverge and then converge many years later. Parallel performances of the young and the old handled so well in what could have been very clunky had the cast not been so universally good. And my, they are good.

It’s a big blustery show, blousy even and the music is a delight, the audience knowing every tune, every lyric and simply getting into the “groove” for sure. Revel Horwood has drilled the large cast in every number and utilised  so many dance forms, from a stunning Argentine tango to body pumping disco. And not one of that cast gets a pass out, all ages and all sizes are required to execute those steps and they all do and do it well.

The band are equally hot, pumping out the numbers but also taking some pop hits and turning them into delicate ballads. It’s all very clever and very entertaining. But this would all be as nothing where the company not great actors and the leads are just that. There are way too many featured characters to name all, but there are some outstanding performances and on this occasion two understudies who, had we not been told, we would not have noticed, so hats off to Molly Chelsey who played young Gemma and to Blake Tuke who played young Tim and incidentally dealt with a costume malfunction with dexterity and charm and stayed for the most part in character whilst doing so. Maia Hawkins is a fantastically cheeky young April, shrill and pushy yet with the sweetest voice and utterly believable as the confident friend of “dorky” Gemma.

Shakil Hussain and Nina Wadia

Nina Wadia is a delight as grown up Gemma and who knew she could sing, which she certainly can. Melissa Jacques is perfect as grown up April and has a voice that could bring the house down, huge and very impressive. Shakil Hussain makes an excellent adult Frank and can also belt out a tune with style and Luke Latcham as his younger self is every inch the teenage younger sibling.

Chris Grahamson and Melissa Jacques

Last and by no means least we get Sonia, the tiny pop princess from Liverpool in what must be described as a cameo role, appearing almost spectral in silver lamé to perform one of her greatest hits. It works in a fun and camp way, some of us wanted more, she is an icon from the era of high energy, but it was a delight and she was as impressive now as she was back when she was beaten by one point at Eurovision.

This is a fun night of theatre, beautifully conceived and executed with a clever set and lavish costumes, clearly nothing has been spared in making it work, and I mean nothing – a brilliant “belly dance” sticks a couple of fingers up to body fascists out there as does the cross generational casting. If asked what I would change, well very little, maybe acknowledge that Gemma could at the end take Tim to the cleaners, and perhaps build up the character of Tim who is a shadowy figure, a baddy that we learn very little about, but otherwise this is a fabulous way to head into the festive season.

Andrew Kay

2 December

Theatre Royal Brighton

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