End of the Rainbow – Reviews Round-up

“The play's main virtue is that it does at least show Garland could be funny: discovering that she has inadvertently swallowed capsules intended for a cocker-spaniel, she gleefully does canine imitations and rolls over on her back to have her tummy tickled. And, of course, there are always the songs, which Bennett delivers with the right mixture of emotional intensity and vocal bravura. She even manages to move with great dexterity from a Garland slumped on the hotel room floor to one defiantly delivering The Trolley Song or The Man That Got Away.”

“There are moments in the theatre when you lean forward in your seat with shivers racing down the spine, and realise there is nowhere on God’s earth you’d rather be. End of the Rainbow is one such occasion, offering one of the greatest musical theatre performances I have ever witnessed. Tracie Bennett’s star turn as Judy Garland in the last raddled months of her life is blackly comic, deeply harrowing and superbly sung, and will be talked about for years to come.”

“Terry Johnson's production is a tremendous, if painful, tribute to Garland. Bennett is stunning and exhausting to watch; a star playing a star. "Immortality would be nice. Yes I'd like that," she says at the play's close. "Immortality might just make up for everything."

“While this is the kind of fare guaranteed to elicit standing ovations, there are times when End of the Rainbow veers towards histrionic schmaltz. It’s somewhat repetitous and not genuinely illuminating. Still, this is surely essential viewing for Judy Garland fans, who will savour its moments of knifing poignancy, and Bennett is superb.”

“Peter Quilter’s moving, miraculous new play End Of The Rainbow.”