Jerry’s Girls – Reviews Round-up

"Undemanding and uplifting old-school showbiz fun"

"This celebration of Jerry Herman, the man behind Hello Dolly! and La Cage Aux Folles, at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory is energising"

"The production is modest but still redolent of greasepaint and glamour. We are in a vintage, rather than modern, theatre."

"The songs are neatly distributed among Cassidy Janson, Jessica Martin and Julie Yammanee to capitalise on their respective personalities: sophisticated, seasoned and perky."

"There is a lot to like here, including Matt Cole’s consistently adept choreography and the sparkling accompaniment of the six-piece, all-female band. And above all, of course, there is the energy and emotional pull of Herman’s indelible music."

"Melodious"

"Thoughtfully constructed revue of Jerry Herman hits gets a bravura delivery"

"Hannah Chissick’s revival navigates a very specific path though the numbers. With the help of designer Paul Farnsworth, Chissick places her trio of vocalists – Cassidy Janson, Jessica Martin and Julie Yammanee – in a shared dressing room at a theatre."

"There’s no dialogue, but Chissick unearths the drama or comedy in each song to feed her narrative."

"It’s Martin, however, who really takes an emotional journey. She’s funny and self-deprecating with Take It All Off or La Cage Aux Folles, contemplative in Before the Parade Passes By, and hits her stride with a revelatory I Don’t Want to Know."

"Chissick’s production, with accompaniment from musical director Sarah Travis and her melodious all-woman band, is a salient reminder that Herman’s gift was to musicalise the resilience of the human spirit."

"Three stalwart performers belt their way through Jerry Herman's hits and misses"

"Much of this feels like it was written by AI fed on 1930s Tinseltown cliches"

"Herman specialised in “the simple, hummable song”, and shorn of their context in a cabaret scenario they tend to blur together. No disrespect to the performances of Cassidy Janson, Jessica Martin, and Julie Yammanee), but this evening is probably for musical theatre obsessives only."

"All three women, sorry “girls”, have rich, powerful voices, with a touch of vibrato, and they harmonise extremely well for the most part."

"The three fraught songs from Dear World, written for Angela Lansbury who’d starred in Mame, are turgid. Inevitably it’s the tunes from La Cage and Hello, Dolly! – Before the Parade Passes By, It Only Takes a Minute, Just Leave Everything to Me – that come across best."