Amanda Holden to star in Shrek

Britain’s Got Talent judge to star as Princess Fiona in new stage adaptation of Shrek

Amanda Holden, the TV and stage actress and judge on ITV’s variety show Britain’s Got Talent, has secured a lead role in the forthcoming DreamWorks production of Shrek The Musical®, based on the Oscar-winning film.

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Playing Princess Fiona, the down-to-earth and independent heroine of the show, Shrek The Musical opens at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London on 7 June 2011.

Holden has a theatrical background, having trained at Mountview Theatre School and appeared in stage roles including Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Mille at the Shaftsbury Theatre and Liesl Von Trapp in a touring production of The Sound of Music. Her numerous TV credits include Suspicious Circumstances opposite Edward Woodward, Eastenders, Mel in Kiss Me Kate, The Grimleys, Wild At Heart, Cutting It  and Big Top.

Shrek The Musical originally opened on Broadway in December 2008 and was nominated for eight Tony Awards. It closed in January this year after a relatively short run, although is now on a major tour of the USA. A number of changes have been made to the touring – and forthcoming London version – of the show, including a new opening, new songs, improved magic and illusions, a newly styled dragon and more emphasis on giving the show “heart”.

This has been confirmed by reviews of the US touring show, which opened this month at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago starring Eric Petersen. The Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones said that the show had, “finally discovered a human scale. Or, to put it another way, “Shrek the Musical” has belatedly found more of a heart”.

Other casting confirmed forthe London production includes Richard Blackwood, who will play the Donkey. Blackwood is a comedian, singer and TV and radio presenter and is also step-brother to model Naomi Campbell.

The London stage musical is based on the irreverent fairy tale from William Steig’s book Shrek and the Oscar-winning Dreamworks Animation film. The creative team includes directors Jason Moore (Avenue Q) and Rob Ashford (Promises, Promises), with book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, music by Olivier Award winner Jeanine Tesori, scenic, costume and puppet design by Tim Hatley, lighting by Hugh Vanstone, sound design by Peter Hylenski and choreography by Josh Prince.

The show is the first stage venture for DreamWorks Animation’s theatrical arm and was originally initiated as a project by award-winning director Sam Mendes. The musical will be produced in London by DreamWorks Theatricals’ Bill Damaschke and Mendes’ Neal Street Productions under Caro Newling.

Neal Street Productions is also behind a number of high-profile new London theatre projects including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Current shows include the Mendes’-directed As You Like It and The Tempest at the Old Vic Theatre.

Official casting information will be released soon. Drury Lane is currently home to Oliver!, which will close at the theatre on 8 January 2011.

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Tonys tension as Broadway bitches back

It’s interesting to read that there has been much grumbling from some sections of Broadway about the invasion of Hollywood at this year’s Tony Awards (Variety: 18 June). Even a Facebook group called “Give the Tonys Back to Broadway” has been formed by Broadway actor Hunter Foster, and now has over 7,000 members.

It can seem like sour grapes when “legit” stage performers moan about Hollywood stars outshining them at their own awards ceremony, particularly when it’s said stars that help to bring the world’s attention to their industry.

The Olivier Awards committee must watch and weep at the enormous star count at the Tonys, even if reasons for being there range from the legitimate – treading the Broadway boards (Denzel Washington, Scarlett Johansson), producing a Broadway show (Will Smith) – to the slightly random (Katie Holmes, Paula Abdul, Raquel Welch…).

With a softening of fim production and a desire to legitimise their acting careers with stage work, film stars on both sides of the Atlantic have been taking to the stage in increasing numbers, with recent British examples including Keira Knightley and Jude Law.

Which seems fair enough when theatre is increasingly turning to cinema and TV to broaden its audience, from the Met and the National Theatre’s international cinema programmes, to Glee’s parade of Broadway stars and TV talent shows such as Five’s forthcoming Don’t Stop Believing featuring Sweet Charity’s Tamsin Outhwaite. It’s a two-way street and theatre stars are benefitting from the screen.

In terms of the Tonys, a high star count does at least mean that a major US network, in this case CBS, is willing to televise the awards. In the UK there is no single channel willing to pick  up the Oliviers, a fact put very nicely by Douglas Hodge in his Winners Circle interview after winning his Tony award.

If the Tonys weren’t televised at all, then maybe Hunter et al would have much more to complain about.

Nick Jonas makes London stage debut

Pop superstar Nick Jonas of boyband Jonas Brothers made his London stage debut last night (21 June 2010) in Les Miserables at the Queen’s Theatre in London.

Supported by his brothers, Joe, Kevin and Frankie Jonas, and parents Denise and Paul Jonas, Nick, 17, wowed the audience at the Queen’s Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue with his performance as Marius Pontmercy.

In the long-running show, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, his character falls in love with Cosette, played by Camilla Kerslake, a 21 year old classical singer from London who is signed to Gary Barlow’s Future Records.

Nick’s father Paul said on Twitter yesterday: “Nick told me when he was 11 and in Les Miz that he would return someday to play Marius. Today is the day. Your family is proud of you”. And following the show he posted, “Nick was amazing tonight in Les Miz. He blew everyone away. Great to be with the whole family for this wonderful life event”.

Fans who watched the show tonight Laura Jonas-Noyes who said on Twitter: “I am SO proud of Nick. Cried at the end!” Nick posted on his own Twitter page said: “What a night. First show was amazing. Thanks to everyone for the good luck messages. Congrats to all my cast mates”.

Nick will be playing the part of Marius for the next three weeks. He said recently in London that: “There’s pop music and then there’s theatrical style music and I’m just getting used to that mind set. And trying to re-learn how to sing like that has been interesting and a lot of fun as well.”

Nick Jonas will also join the cast of a special concert performance of Les Mis on Sunday 3 October at the O2 in London, featuring more than 300 actors and musicians, including Alfie Boe as Jean Valjean, Nick Jonas as Marius, Norm Lewis as Javert, Little Britain star Matt Lucas as Thenardier, Miss Saigon star Lea Salonga as Fantine, Jenny Galloway as Madame Thenardier, Camilla Kerslake as Cosette and the casts of the original production at the Queen’s Theatre, the UK touring production, including Gareth Gates, and members of the original 1985 London cast.

Nick Jonas is a member of globally successful boyband Jonas Brothers. 17 year old Nick is no stranger to performing on stage, having played the role of Gavroche in Les Miserables on Broadway in 2003. He has also appeared in a number of other Broadway shows from the age of 7 years old onwards, including A Christmas Carol, Annie Get Your Gun, Beauty and the Beast and The Sound of Music.

Nick and his brothers are currently performing a major series of concerts across the US. The Jonas Brothers, Kevin, Joe and Nick, released their first album, It’s About Time, in 2006, which spawned the TRL hit “Mandy”. Their next album, 2007’s Jonas Brothers, went platinum, as did their 2008 release A Little Bit Longer and 2009’s Lines, Vines and Trying Times. They found fame through the Disney Channel movie Camp Rock.

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PHOTO LINKS:

More photos of Nick Jonas in Les Miserables – OceanUp

More photos of Nick Jonas in Les Miserables – Daily Mail

More photos of Nick Jonas in Les Miserables – Cambio

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Lee Mead starts Wicked

Lee Mead started his stint in award-winning West End show Wicked this week, playing the role of Fiyero.

Currently one of the busiest boys in show-business, Lee and his wife Denise van Outen gave birth to their first child, Betsy Mead, on 1 May. He joined the cast of major Broadway and West End show Wicked on Monday 10 May playing the role of Fiyero,a prince who  falls in love with Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. He also begins a series of eight Sunday concerts (on his Wicked day off!) from 23 May.

Initial feedback from his debut performance in Wicked has been largely positive, with fan sites such as the Lee Mead Appreciation Society busy with reviews from his performance.

Following his performance on Monday, fellow Wicked co-star Rachel Tucker posted on Twitter that, “Lee was so wonderful… such pressure on him and u would have thought he’d been doing it for weeks”.

Winner of BBC One talent show Any Dream Will Do, Mead went on to star in the 2007 revival of Joseph at the Adelphi Theatre in London, and has since appeared in a UK tour of Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime. He has also released two albums.

Book tickets to see Lee Mead in Wicked at the Apollo Victoria in London

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There are several ways of receiving RSS feeds, but the technology is moving forwards and adapting very quickly. The main method is to download a program called a ‘News Reader’. You can then set up this program to receive RSS information from whatever websites you wish that offer it, and browse headlines and story summaries that link through to the full story on the website.

There are several News Reader programs available for all platforms, many of which are free. See a list here.

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Love Never Dies – Adelphi Theatre – Reviews Round-up

We’ve had the bitter blogs, the Lord’s rebukes and hysterical Phans. We’ve had the angst over reviewing before the opening night, the power of bloggers to bring down a show, the puns, the clogged forums and the slightly desperate clamour of the press to seek out a good old-fashioned theatrical disaster story.

And now, following tonight’s glittering first night at the Adelphi Theatre, the national newspaper critics give us their thoughts on Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s latest musical, Love Never Dies.

STAR RATINGS

The Telegraph

The Guardian

Bloomberg

The Independent

The Times

OPENING THOUGHTS

GU: There is much to enjoy in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical…. the problems lie within the book, chiefly credited to Lloyd Webber himself and Ben Elton, which lacks the weight to support the imaginative superstructure.

IN: [The] mix of the heart-stopping and the stomach-lurching (a true kinaesthetic experience) characterises some of the best sequences in Love Never Dies,

TE: What I have no doubt about whatever is that this is Lloyd Webber’s finest show since the original Phantom, with a score blessed with superbly haunting melodies and a yearning romanticism that sent shivers racing down my spine.

DM: Love may never die but West End shows will come perilously close to disaster unless they have some oompf and bongo — and preferably a decent tune — in the first 15 minutes. Love Never Dies, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to Phantom Of The Opera, is as slow to motor as a lawnmower at spring’s first cut.

TI: Oh, how time and a dismally implausible plot have altered him [the Phantom] and his life.

VA: The trouble with “Love Never Dies” is that while a couple of melodies deliver, the show doesn’t. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to “The Phantom of the Opera” wants to be a tragic romance, but it’s simply torpid. Only a radical rewrite will give it even the remotest chance of emulating its predecessor.

ON THE CREATIVES

TE: [Jack O’Brien’s production] seems entirely in tune with Lloyd Webber’s vision… Bob Crowley’s designs, though not as opulent as those of Maria Björnson in the original, and lacking the breathtaking panache of the collapsing chandelier and the candlelit boat-trip across the underground lake, are nevertheless constantly inventive, including clever use of video, a riot of writhing art nouveau, and splendidly creepy animated models in the phantom’s eyrie.

IN: What is in no doubt is the technical excellence of Jack O’Brien’s seamlessly fluent, sumptuous (and sometimes subtle) production… Bob Crowley’s design and Jack O’Brien’s direction have a beautiful kaleidoscopic fluidity.

GU: While offering a spectacular eyeful, O’Brien’s production is also unafraid of simplicity: the staging of the climactic number, with Christine advancing down to the shell-shaped footlights, could hardly be more direct… Crowley’s designs offer a beguiling mix of new technology and art nouveau… Paule Constable’s lighting adds to the show’s visual appeal: she lends a Hopper-like gloom to a sub-pier bar and gives a broadwalk vista a Renoiresque glow.

TI: Visually, there’s nothing to match the marvels that Maria Bjornson created with murk, candles and vast curtains in the original Phantom, but Bob Crowley successfully evokes much of Phantasma, helped by projections of spooky horses on carousels.

ON RAMIN & SIERRA

IN: Ramin Karimloo may not be a physically imposing enough presence as the Phantom, but his marvellously supple voice can run the gamut from a seductive guttural whisper to the full blare of frustrated passion. Looking gorgeous in a range of stylish period-outfits, Sierra Boggess’s Christine boasts a voice that can pool and purl quietly and then knock you dead with her towering rendition of the climactic title number.

TE: Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess sing superbly as the Phantom and Christine, with a real spark between them. Boggess is especially fine in the soaring title song, and Karimloo deftly combines menace and vulnerability throughout. Meanwhile Joseph Millson memorably captures the self-destructive Raoul.

GU: From my distant seat in row O, the performances seemed fine. Ramin Karimloo’s Phantom may not have the tragic quality of Michael Crawford’s prototype but that is hardly his fault: the character is now more a mildly disabled Kane (of the Wellesian variety) than a social pariah. Sierra Boggess also displays a strong, vibrant soprano as Christine. Summer Strallen as the vengeful Meg and Liz Robertsan as her creepy, Mrs Danvers-like mum are both strongly defined.

DM: Sierra Boggess, as Christine, is the production’s great joy — its show saver. She has a soprano of porcelain precision and her scene 4 duet with 10-year-old Gustave (excellent Harry Child), brushed by harp, is the first of three quick songs which rescue the evening.

TI: Even though Sierra Boggess’s sweet but never sickly Christine gets a bit piercing when her high-note flutterings hit the vocal stratosphere, it also pleases the ear, as do several other numbers — though usually with a major-key lilt, never with the danger and dissonance that the Phantom tale would seem to demand. Beside, say, the Elephant Man, Karimloo’s urbane, melodic, not-so-sinister Phantom might be Cary Grant.

THE MUSIC

GU: The score is one of the composer’s most seductive… At his very best – as in Joseph, Jeeves, The Phantom of the Opera and Sunset Boulevard – Lloyd Webber’s melodic inventiveness matches the material; here you have a welter of great tunes in search of a strong story. But at least the American setting gives Lloyd Webber the chance to explore a variety of musical idioms.

IN: the splendour of the orchestra which pours forth Lloyd Webber’s dark-hued, yearning melodies as if its life depended on them.

TE: The music is a constant pleasure, lavishly orchestrated and ranging from deliciously pert vaudeville numbers to those thrillingly romantic love songs, by way of an eerie dissonant waltz and a sudden unexpected blast of full-on prog-rock.

DM: The Entr’acte asserts Lloyd Webber at his most soupily sumptuous and the second half is far better. His music crests in a breaking chord when Christine is staring into her dressing-room mirror, trying to decide between her loves.

ON THE BLOGGERS

GU: I should say that I have no truck with those ghoulish groupies who’ve seen The Phantom of the Opera 852 times and regard any sequel as equivalent to painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa. No masterpiece has been besmirched

TE: I have received furious emails from fans or, as they style themselves, “Phans” of the original Phantom of the Opera, still running in the West End more than 23 years after it first opened, telling me that the new piece is a travesty. And there is no doubt that Love Never Dies seems like a relic of another age. Gloomy-doomy, largely through-sung musicals like this have in recent years been superseded in public affection by a welcome return to musical comedy in such shows as Hairspray, Sister Act and the latest hit, Legally Blonde. In the midst of a recession, will audiences fork out top dollar for two-and-a half hours of dark Gothic imaginings, seething passion, and in the final scene, sudden violent death?

TI: The blogosphere has been teeming with views of Lloyd Webber’s long-awaited Phantom II. For some, Love Never Dies is “Paint Never Dries”, and for others the composer is at his musical best. I tend to agree with both factions.

ON THE BOOK

GU: What the show lacks, in a nutshell, is narrative tension. For Christine, having discovered her employer’s true identity, the big question is “to sing or not to sing?”. The result is a foregone conclusion.

TE: It seems extraordinary that it should have taken four hands to write the not especially complex book, among them Lloyd Webber, Ben Elton, and Frederick Forsyth, while Glenn Slater’s lyrics strike me as serviceable rather than inspired.

DM: That core justification — the romantic gubbins — is badly lacking. In the end you conclude that she simply seeks out suffering to improve her art.

TI: So where’s the tension in Ben Elton and Lloyd Webber’s book? That’s not helped by a narrative that might have been part-written by Ibsen’s ghost, there’s so much earnest poring over the past. But mainly it comes from Christine’s one-time friend Meg (Summer Strallen) who has also moved to Coney Island and aims to be the belle of all this balls.

ON ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER

IN: In a sense, Lloyd Webber has become hoist by his own petard. Having over-petted the public, he is now being badly mauled by a section of it – the Phantom fanatics who feel that they own the original more than he does. On both counts (casting and the right to do what he likes with his own material), Lloyd Webber has, for once, the moral high ground here.

TE: There is something personal about Lloyd Webber’s relationship with the Phantom, as if in the character of the tortured and deformed composer he is confronting something of his own inner darkness. The character might just be a terrifying self-portrait, hanging in the attic of his imagination.

IN: It’s revealing that Andrew Lloyd Webber, who has cast leading roles in his most recent ventures by public vote on reality TV talent show, has not allowed the public anywhere near his casting decisions for Love Never Dies. This rather exposes how low-risk those TV experiments have been, geared as they have been to fairly safe properties such as The Sound of Music and Oliver!.

FINAL THOUGHTS

IN: The ending (which I won’t give away) feels phoney in the unconvincing completeness of its resolution. It makes what has preceded it abruptly feel a good deal less than the sum of its parts and cries out for more ambiguity. In short, it should be “phixed”.

GU: The show has much to commend it and the staging is a constant source of iridescent pleasure. But, as one of the lyrics reminds us, “diamonds never sparkle bright unless they are set just right”. Although Lloyd Webber’s score is full of gems, in the end a musical is only as good as its book. With a libretto to match the melodies, this might have been a stunner rather than simply a good night out.

TE: The show may ultimately prove too strange, too dark, too tormented to become a massive popular hit, but I suspect its creepy allure will linger potently in the memory when frothier shows have been long forgotten.

DM: The night ends with a death scene so long that it may only reignite the euthanasia debate… So: a hit? Not quite. It is too much an also-ran to the prequel, and its opening is too stodgy. But if it is a miss, it is — like Christine — a noble miss, noble because Lloyd Webber’s increasingly operatic music tries to lift us to a higher plane.

TI: Where’s the menace, the horror, the psychological darkness? For that I recommend a trip to Her Majesty’s, not the Adelphi.

VA: At the moment, watching the sequel only makes you appreciate the achievement of the original.

KEY TO CRITICS:

TE: The Telegraph – Charles Spencer

DM: Daily Mail – Quentin Letts

GU: The Guardian – Michael Billington

BL: Bloomberg – Warwick Thompson

IN: The Independent – Paul Taylor

TI: The Times – Benedict Nightingale

VA: Variety – David Benedict

Other reviews:

Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Book tickets to Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre in London

Private Lives – Vaudeville Theatre – Reviews Round-up

Round up of reviews of PRIVATE LIVES starring Kim Cattrall at the Vaudeville Theatre in London

STAR RATINGS

Evening Standard

The Telegraph

The Guardian

The Independent

Daily Mail

IN A NUTSHELL

GU: A classy revival, expertly staged by Richard Eyre… but, while it will give pleasure, the partnership of Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen as Amanda and Elyot never struck me as hatched in some ante-room of heaven.

TE: Richard Eyre’s terrific new production

TI: Thanks to him [Eyre] and his lead actors you can’t miss the play’s unassuming point and purpose.

ES: Noël Coward’s comedy calls for a mixture of turbulence and dry urbanity, and Richard Eyre’s finely calibrated production of Private Lives exhibits just the right blend of these qualities.

IN: Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen display an onstage chemistry that works like a volatile charm in Richard Eyre’s exhilaratingly funny revival of the Noel Coward comedy classic.

VA: The delights of flippancy are only intermittently on offer in Richard Eyre’s effortful revival. It’s not just the headline casting of Kim Cattrall as Amanda that overbalances this production.

DM: This is a gorgeous, glorious production of Private Lives, just bitchy enough to be modern, yet old-fashioned enough to have a three-part form.

ON KIM CATTRALL

IN: Right from the moment when Cattrall first appears on the hotel balcony clad only in a snowy white beach towel. With her tossed blonde curls and barbed flightiness, she’s a delight. …she’s got very good comic timing and demonstrates a winning flair for emotional slapstick.

GU: Cattrall, most famed for Sex and the City, is actually very good as Amanda… she brings out the inviolable selfhood that, for Coward, was a vital part of sexual attraction.

TE: Cattral is a vision to behold, at ease in her body, and miraculously combining vulnerability with sharp wit.

TI: At first I thought… [Cattrall] too free with the sort of fluttery vowels Marilyn Monroe might have have emitted were she attempting an English accent, [but] she combines allure with the mulishness of a woman who knows her own mind as well as her own body.

ES: Cattrall conveys an arch playfulness and a good deal of flighty yet vulnerable glamour. There’s warmth, too, albeit perhaps not quite enough of it.

VA: Cattrall is as elegant and feline as could be hoped for…  But it requires too much effort for Cattrall to iron out her North American inflections and accent, making her voice — and thus her performance — high-pitched and, on occasion, forced.

DM: Actress Kim Cattrall almost completely sheds her identity as ‘that vamp from TV’s Sex And The City’… she produces a not quite faultless English accent. A few words such as ‘one’, ‘afterwards’, ‘going’ and ‘worry’ require attention, but as Elyot says in one of the play’s many memorable lines, ‘don’t quibble, Sibyl’.

ON MATTHEW MACFAYDEN

IN: Macfadyen is all the funnier for being so meatily masculine and solid a presence, with an accent that seems to mock its own port-wine plumminess in a manner that reminded me, at times, of Michael Gambon.

GU: There is a sanity about Macfadyen which doesn’t quite square with Elyot’s espousal of flippancy as a way of life.

TE: Matthew Macfadyen has more than a touch of the brutish bully about him.

TI: At first I thought him too aloof, even a bit sullen and stolid… But his wit has bite

ES: In the key roles, Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen have what might blithely be termed chemistry — though in fact it’s closer to particle physics, all energetic collisions and strong nuclear force.

DM: Mr Macfadyen resists any temptation to speak in a classic clipped Cowardese. He makes sense of the lines by using the sort of pouty tone of entitlement too often heard from today’s gilded 30-somethings.

VA: Macfadyen is an unusually weighty Elyot. But his unexpectedly baleful quality initially slows down the play’s pulse. He too warms up as the play progresses, but his rhythm only rarely seems in synch with Cattrall’s.

IN SUMMARY

IN: Eyre’s splendid production alerts you anew to the fact that Private Lives is a dazzling feat of airborne comic dramaturgy.

GU: It is a clever, funny production that certainly hits the spot. Only the nagging perfectionist in me makes me feel there is even more to Amanda and Elyot… they never quite acquire the halo of specialness that for Coward was the justification for living.

TE: This production never quite attains the bruising passion that Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman brought to the play a few years ago, but it comes close.

ES: Although it begins on an unexpectedly passive note, this is a satisfying and intelligently conceived production. It’s fluent, very funny and at times dazzlingly well-acted.

VA: The play only truly comes to life in the scenes of physical comedy… Cattrall’s presence may pull crowds, but compared with past couplings as blissful as Abigail Thaw and Simon Robson, or Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman, these two are simply working too hard.

KEY TO REVIEWS:

ES: Evening Standard – Henry Hitchings

TI: The Times – Benedict Nightingale

TE: The Telegraph – Charles Spencer

GU: The Guardian – Michael Billington

IN: The Independent – Paul Taylor

DM: Daily Mail – Quentin Letts

VA: Variety – David Benedict

Book tickets to see Private Lives at the Vaudeville Theatre in London

Legally Blonde – Savoy Theatre – Reviews round-up

Round-up of reviews of LEGALLY BLONDE at the Savoy Theatre in London

The reviews of Legally Blonde, which opened on Wednesday at the Savoy Theatre in London, were largely positive.  Cleverly the producers allowed critics to review preview performances as well as the official First Night – which meant they were exposed to some of the hard-core fans that have alreday started to gather around this show. This was a smart move as the infectious enthusiasm of the audience won over many of the critics – all of whom seemed to come to the show with misgivings.

Whilst nearly all the reviews had reservations about the plot, they couldn’t resist being taken by the tongue-in-cheek humour of the show, and particuarly the strong central performce of Sheridan Smith as Elle Woods (see a summary of the plot here). All apart from Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail…

STAR RATINGS

The Guardian

The Telegraph

The Times

The Independent

Daily Mail

Evening Standard

OPENING THOUGHTS

DM: Legally Blonde is so pink it is as though the IRA planted a bomb in the late Dame Barbara Cartland’s laundry basket. It is pink not just in the colour of many of the clothes and stage effects. It is pink to the core of its little, tiny soul.

ES: It’s not often that a West End musical references Simon Cowell, case law and the science of getting a perm. But this is Legally Blonde, in which gags about spring break rub up against throw-aways about Gloria Steinem and Thomas Hobbes, and with its mix of daftness and knowingness this sugary yet far from stupid romp will surely be a palpable hit.

VA: Size, as they say, matters. That idea is not lost on Sonia Friedman and her raft of U.K. producers on “Legally Blonde,” who have put the show in a smallish house more accustomed to plays than lavish tuners. Their financial gamble pays off big time thanks to a heap of reasons, chief among them being casting. This guilty pleasure of a show remains precision-engineered candy-floss, but as Elle, pint-sized knockout Sheridan Smith gives it heart and helium levels of happiness.

TI: Omygod, as a jazzily dressed set of sorority sisters keep squealing at the start of the delightful, annoying, supremely wishful musical that’s just come frolicking into Blighty from Broadway. Omygod, a girl can make it in a male-dominated world without sacrificing a dab of pink lipstick.

IN: I had thought snootily that the stage show of Legally Blonde might put the “ugh” in “euuuugh!” But omigod was I like totally blown away.

GU: It is, of course, preposterous: an LA fashion student conquers Harvard law school and becomes a courtroom star. But, for all its absurdity, I found this Broadway musical infinitely more enjoyable than the 2001 Hollywood movie on which it is based.

TE: OMIGOD! I tried, I really tried to hate this show, but resistance is futile. It’s going to be a huge hit and if you’re a chap, your wife or girlfriend is almost certain to drag you along. You might as well give in gracefully now.

ON SHERIDAN SMITH

ES: Sheridan Smith is emphatically the star of the show… It’s a performance of great warmth and enthusiasm.

IN: With her brilliantly warm, winning, witty and all-round adorable performance as Elle, Sheridan Smith achieves stage stardom like some jaw-dropping hole-in-one in golf… This girl can twirl on a dime and take you from elating silliness to genuine sadness in less time than it takes to say “Delta Nu”.

VA: Elle dreams of a bright and shiny life, a hope-filled demeanor Smith delivers in spades. It’s infectious and immensely winning because she deploys razor-sharp comic timing without ever sacrificing properly developed emotion. She’s deliciously knowing but never arch. Even when surrounded by silliness, she has an uncanny knack of making you lose sight of the performer, to empathize directly with the character’s hopes and dreams.

TE: The chief glory of the show is Sheridan Smith as Elle, blessed with vitality, warmth, great comic timing and sudden moments of touching vulnerability. She is infinitely more likeable than Reese Witherspoon in the film.

GU: Sheridan Smith as Elle is also far more vivacious than Reese Witherspoon. Smith is perky, trim, and sings and dances excellently. But her true star quality lies in her sense of mischief, which I first noticed when she was a teenager appearing with the National Youth Music Theatre. Blessed with the long upper lip of a natural comic, Smith sails buoyantly through the show with a radiant smile as if warning us not to take it too seriously.

DM: Miss Smith’s singing voice is not strong but she brings a likeable cheekiness to the part. A crueller critic might wonder if she is glamorous enough for the role.

IN A NUTSHELL

ES: Legally Blonde is a winner. It’s energetic and amusing, with a sprightly sense of pace, and all but the most flinty-hearted theatregoers will leave it flushed with delight.

IN: It may not be quite as good as Hairspray (it lacks that show’s lovely, double-bluffing libertarian dimension), but it’s ridiculously enjoyable from start to finish and camp peroxide-perfection in terms of its showbiz roots.

VA: this transfer looks set to thrive as long as Smith wants to stick around and steal hearts.

TI: Let’s overlook some forgettable tunes and welcome dance that embraces everything from skipping with ropes to spoof Riverdance. Let’s relish the support both of a fake-Greek chorus dressed as cheerleaders and of two cute, unnaturally obedient dogs. Let’s agree that Legally Blonde is, well, fun.

TE: This is rom-com with a welcome touch of irony.

GU: I can only report that the ­predominantly female audience with whom I saw the show seemed to be ­having a whale of a time and did not give a damn about the fact that the musical is little more than a nonsensical fairytale.

DM: The plot is pap, the musical unmemorable, the dancing often hefty except for one routine with skipping ropes.

KEY TO REVIEWS:

GU = Guardian: Michael Billington. Read review

TE = Telegraph: Charles Spencer. Read review

TI = The Times: Benedict Nightingale. Read review

VA = Variety: David Benedict. Read review

IN = The Independent: Paul Taylor. Read review

ES = Evening Standard: Henry Hitchings. Read review

DM = Dail Mail: Quentin Letts. Read review

Book tickets to see LEGALLY BLONDE at the Savoy Theatre in London

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