ajhlovestheatre

42ND STREET

Music by Harry Warren

Lyrics by Al Dubin

Book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble

Based on the novel by Bradford Ropes

Original direction and dances by Gower Champion

Directed by Jonathan Church

Sadlers Wells Theatre, London – until 2 July 2023, then touring

https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/42nd-street/

42nd Street is the quintessential backstage musical, the motherload of showbiz fairytales. Based on a 1930s novel then movie about the eternally hopeful chorine who achieves instant stardom against all odds (“you’re going out there a nobody, but you’ve got to come back a star” bellows the bombastic director to neophyte Peggy Sawyer before pushing her into the spotlight), it was a major Broadway and West End success in the 1980s, and enjoyed a lavish revival at Drury Lane just before the venue closed for an extensive pre-pandemic refurbishment.

Now it’s back, in a brand new Curve Leicester production touching down at Sadlers Wells before embarking on a (substantially recast) national tour. The plot is fairly thin, but when the central performances and characterisations are as strong as they are in Jonathan Church’s new staging, which also makes a valid attempt at contextualising the show in the grim depression era rather than just presenting it as a glitzy stagey fable, Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble’s book feels like more than just a framework on which to peg a selection of Harry Warren and Al Dublin’s best known numbers.

And what beloved numbers they are: the title song, ‘We’re In The Money’, ‘Dames’, ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ and more all come up fresh as paint in Larry Blank’s suitably brassy orchestrations and sung by a uniformly strong company of voices. This production may not be as huge in scale as earlier iterations but neither does it look or feel cheap, or lacking the requisite flamboyance this show needs to really pop.

More than in any other version I’ve seen, there’s a sense that there’s a lot at stake, of artists attempting to create theatrical magic against the background of desperate financial privations, and that if the gamble of putting on this sumptuous new spectacle doesn’t pay off, then many of these people really will be on the breadline. To this end, the extended overture is punctuated by vintage film footage of a wan, destabilised 1930s America, interspersed with brief onstage glimpses, dimly lit, of auditions and gruelling dance classes. Far from sapping the fun out of this most entrancing of musicals, this extra intensity and context has the effect of throwing all the joyful stuff (of which there is plenty) into sharper, more concentrated relief.

If Adam Garcia seems a little young and down-to-earth to fully convince as hard boiled director Julian Marsh, he has an easy charm, and is pure magic in the brief moments when he gets to dance. His characterisation is further helped by the elimination of the bit of comedy business where Julian passionately kisses Peggy to elicit a specific romantic response in the script they’re working on. The recent Paris revival kept it in and, while it works, it looks borderline creepy through 2023 eyes.

Ruthie Henshall delivers far and away the most well rounded, hilarious yet oddly touching reading of diva-ish leading lady Dorothy Brock that I’ve ever seen. Magnificently venomous but with an undertow of unexpected vulnerability, she is part monster, part kitten, and entirely believable. Henshall is so magnetic that you sort-of love her even when she’s behaving appallingly, and, crucially, ignites the stage with authentic stardom when Dorothy is “performing”….difficult as this woman is, she is clearly the Real Deal. If it takes a star to play a star, then Henshall is it.

The Real Deal is a phrase that also applies to Nicole-Lily Baisden’s enchanting Peggy Sawyer. A glorious triple threat with enough energy and charisma to light up the Empire State Building, Baisden captures precisely Sawyer’s wide-eyed enthusiasm and sheer likability, but also gives her a steely edge of ambition. She’s utterly convincing too when she thinks she’s blown her showbiz dreams, and breaks your heart with her open-faced sadness. She’s fabulous.

Further down the cast list is some serious luxury casting. As Maggie Jones and Bert Barry, creators and co-stars of the musical-within-a-musical, Josefina Gabrielle and Les Dennis are a winning double act. Dennis’s Bert is a delightful loose cannon, kept (just about) on the straight and narrow by Gabrielle’s glamazon Maggie, a woman acutely aware of possible problems with her writing partner but also constantly mindful that they desperately need this gig. Gabrielle’s stage presence, ability to point a comic line, subtle playing of subtext, and sardonic way with a lyric is an object lesson in musical comedy performance, like watching an authentic Broadway diva in action, and she’s missed whenever she’s not on stage.

Sam Lips is utter perfection as the juvenile male lead, and Michael Praed lends Pat Denning, the man Dorothy loves and probably the only person capable of truly humanising her, a heart catching warmth and depth. Anthony Ofoegbu is very funny as the clueless sugar daddy that is funding Brock’s stage return while also standing in the way of her true happiness.

The tightly drilled ensemble deliver Bill Deamer’s elegant, tap-happy choreography with flair, commitment and apparently inexhaustible energy. Some of the bigger numbers threaten to raise the rafters of the theatre, and the cumulative effect is of a couple of dozen people defying you to wipe the smile off your face.

Robert Jones’s sets and costumes are attractive, employing a predominantly deep blue and gold colour pallet, periodically shot through with reds, greens and sparkle, all augmented by liberal use of projections, and gorgeously lit by Ben Cracknell. It may be a slightly more visually restrained 42nd Street than we’re used to, but it’s evocative (the titular ballet looks like a Vincente Minnelli movie musical burst into life) and opulent.

This is an intelligent but still exhilarating new slant on a much loved property. It feels fresh and vital, but has enough of the good old stuff to keep veteran theatregoers happy. Really great entertainment that sends you out into the night misty-eyed and satisfied. I defy anybody not to enjoy it.