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Review – Hello Dolly! London Palladium, 17th July 2024

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Thinking back on some of the stand-out critical notices relating to some of the big opening nights in theatre history, one of my favourites is Walter Kerr in The Herald Tribune on the opening night of Hello Dolly in 1964: “Don’t bother holding on your hats… you’ll only be throwing them into the air!” – I may be paraphrasing here, but you get the picture. A big night, with a big show, fronted by a big star – that’s the secret of Hello Dolly. Over the years, it’s been synonymous with the likes of Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, Phyllis Diller, Ethel Merman, and, the Dolly of them all, Carol Channing. And now there’s a new star to add to this dolly mix – Imelda Staunton.

There aren’t many shows that you look forward to for five years, but Imelda Staunton was announced as the new Dolly last decade, with the big show set to take place at the Savoy Theatre (if I remember rightly) in the summer of 2020. But we all remember what happened in the summer of 2020, when politicians partied whilst the rest of us lived in isolation. Plans for joyous events like a revival of Hello Dolly obviously had to be shelved. Fortunately, you can’t keep a good Dolly down and in 2024 it’s finally come to fruition on the glorious stage of the London Palladium.

It’s a simple story of simple folk; curmudgeonly half-millionaire (we are talking about a long time ago) Horace Vandergelder has engaged the services of matchmaker Dolly Levi to find him a wife. Horace runs a Hay and Seed merchants, where his underlings Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker have no lives of their own and no time to themselves. But one day, Horace must go to New York to meet a potential new wife, and Cornelius and Barnaby decide to shut up the shop and go to New York for an adventure of their own. Dolly also has plans up her sleeves – engineer it so that she marries Horace, and if Cornelius and Barnaby can also meet and fall in love with a couple of New York girls, that would be a day well spent. Rest assured, it’s a happy ending with four weddings in the finale!

Hello Dolly benefits from a – largely – superb score by Jerry Herman and a surprisingly funny book by Michael Stewart; no wonder that original Broadway run lasted for 2,844 performances. As well as the memorable title theme, you’ve got the stirring Before the Parade Passes By and Put On Your Sunday Clothes, the witty It Takes a Woman, Elegance and So Long Dearie, the emotional It Only Takes a Moment and Ribbons Down My Back – and the irrepressible Waiters Gallop. The only song that strikes me as being completely outdated and probably worth skipping is Dancing, where Cornelius discovers, lo and behold, that he can dance. Ten years earlier, Salad Days did it better with Look at Me (I’m Dancing). There’s only so far you can indulge that whimsy.

As I was watching the performance of Ribbons Down My Back, I remembered how much I hated that song when I was younger; slow, ponderous and thoroughly boring, I thought. I hear it now and I relish in its gorgeous swapping from minor to major and its subtle lyrics that tell you so much about the character of Irene without making it obvious. Sometimes musical theatre is wasted on the young! That use of a song, to get deeply into a characterisation, is also beautifully realised in Before the Parade Passes By, which is where Dolly realises this is probably her one last chance to return to the world of the living; and – more frivolously – It Takes a Woman, which tells us so much about Horace’s misogyny and thorough laziness!

You already knew that the London Palladium is a massive stage, and you need huge sets to make the maximum impact. Rae Smith’s design is pretty successful on this count; I really admired the use of the streetcar in Before the Parade, giving a wonderful sense of movement on the stage, and the vital sweeping staircase at the Harmonia Gardens restaurant is tasteful and stylish rather than gaudy and glitzy. And that is the watchword for the whole production; taste and style predominate over the brash and brazen. And that’s very suitable for our new Dolly, Imelda Staunton, who is a pint-sized powerhouse rather than a domineering, in-your-face life force like Carol Channing. This production feels very slightly toned down to accommodate Ms Staunton’s interpretation of the role; much more toned down than Ms Channing, but then even Brian Blessed is more toned down than her.

This thoughtful, realistic Dolly comes to the fore most clearly in the famous restaurant/Hello Dolly scene halfway through the second act. Previous Dollies have relished the thought of performing the big number, and come out on stage, all guns blazing, ready to deliver a rip-roaring good time. Ms Staunton pares the performance back, to bring out all Dolly’s insecurities about returning to a place where she had such good times in the past – but it’s been so long now, she’s lost her confidence and her stride, and she doesn’t even know if they’ll be happy to see her again. So at least the first half of this scene concentrates on exposing her fears and gradually seeing her return to her usual self as she realises she’s been accepted back. It’s a very bold way of performing this song, but completely in keeping with the book and the characterisation.

I have one little cavil about this production: the stage movement and choreography relies too heavily on using the revolving stage to present characters walking purposefully from one side of the stage to the other, only to pause, so that they return to where they were before and then resume walking. It works brilliantly at first, but then it gets tedious; and by the time they were still using it in So Long Dearie, it was really annoying me! Less is more!

One thing you can certainly say about this production is that it sounds stunning throughout. Nicholas Skilbeck’s 21-piece orchestra produces exquisite arrangements and performances that fill the auditorium and make your toes curl with pleasure. And everyone’s voices, from Ms Staunton down to the members of the ensemble, are pitch-perfect and harmonise with genuine beauty. Jenna Russell can always be relied upon to deliver a superb performance, and here she gives us a playfully spirited Irene, ready – like Dolly – to take an unexpected leap into the unknown. Harry Hepple is another excellent song and dance man who brings enthusiasm and excitement to the role of Cornelius, leading the terrific Elegance quartet and delivering a powerful It Only Takes a Moment. There’s excellent support with great comedic performances by Tyrone Huntley as Barnaby and Emily Lane as Minnie, and Emily Langham steals every scene with her bawling performance as the eternally miserable Ermengarde.

Andy Nyman gives us a rather likeable Horace Vandergelder. In fact, I wondered if he could be more of a misery-guts and more terrifying to his staff. You get the feeling that Mr Nyman is so completely delighted to be performing this role at the Palladium that he forgets to be grumpy! When he finally becomes bowled over by Dolly’s charms, no one is the slightest bit surprised. And the cast is led by the brilliant Imelda Staunton, using every breath of her stunning voice to full effect, emphasising the comedic way in which Dolly wraps everyone around her little finger to do precisely what she wants them to do, but also tapping into the character’s uncertainties and internal monologues to give us a Dolly with depth, more than just the traditional glamorous showgirl.

A great night’s entertainment which sends you home with the warm glow of Feelgood Factor 50! It’s on at the Palladium until 14th September.

Five Alive, Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – The Book of Mormon, Prince of Wales Theatre, 2nd March 2013

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You know that thing when there is a huge crackle of anticipation in a theatre before it starts? You can find it in abundance at the moment at the Prince of Wales where The Book of Mormon is currently previewing. We saw the first Saturday matinee preview, so I guess there may still be some tweaks ahead, but to be honest I couldn’t see anything that needed tweaking.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s the first time I’ve been to the Prince of Wales in many years and I was absolutely stunned at how beautifully it has been renovated. It was originally built in 1937 and has had a full Art Deco makeover. The bar at the back of the stalls is sensibly massive, and how pleasing it is to see it fully staffed with at least six hard-working people. The toilet provision is much more plentiful than you’d find in the average theatre. And the prices of drinks and merchandise were, I thought, remarkably reasonable. Every single member of staff that we talked to was jolly, friendly, polite and helpful. What a fantastically well-run theatre!

The Book of Mormon comes to London with a happy history already behind it, having collected no fewer than nine Tony awards in New York. Written by the irreverent team of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, of South Park fame, and Robert Lopez of Avenue Q, it’s not hard to predict the level of humour and zaniness that will fill the theatre. If anything, it’s far funnier than I expected, because it has none – well, very little – of the grotesqueness of South Park and the stereotypes depicted are actually rather endearing. It’s also less cruel than I had expected, and it has a rewardingly happy ending – all apart from the poor guy who gets shot halfway through. To say it’s irreverent is an understatement; and it is chock-full of subject matter that many people could find extremely offensive; but it is all done with a lightness of touch so that your only reaction is to laugh your socks off; and anything else that isn’t tied down. This really is intensive care funny. Imagine a cleaner-cut version of Jerry Springer The Opera and you’re somewhere in the right area. It goes without saying that it’s shamelessly non-PC; and it’s superbly staged throughout with great sets, lighting and costumes.

If you don’t want to know the story, skip this paragraph, although I’m only really giving you the introduction. Elders are getting paired off to go and spread the word of Mormon on doorsteps around the world. Our hero (or is he?) Elder Price is looking forward to partnering a regular guy just like himself and hitting the joyous streets of Orlando; instead he is paired off with our other hero (or is he?) Elder Cunningham, a needy nerdy fantasist with no mates, and they’re sent to Uganda. Things don’t go entirely to plan – there are no doorbells on the mud huts for one thing – and our heroes join the other Elders already in town in completely failing to make any conversions. But things turn around… and a bizarre success story awaits. I won’t tell you any more as I don’t want to ruin it for you.

If laughter is the best policy, making tickets available for this show on the National Health would be top of every party’s manifesto. Within ten seconds of curtain up I started laughing, and I barely stopped for the next two and a half hours – excepting the interval, where I stopped laughing long enough to enjoy a Pinot Grigio. After you’ve experienced the first number, “Hello!” you’ll find that you never, ever say the word “hello” again with the same intonation as before. There’s only one way to say it – bright eyed and bushy tailed and with the enthusiasm of a zealot door to door salesman. What the show does brilliantly is to lampoon the more ridiculous ideas of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (every religion has some ridiculous ideas) and make you the audience member step back and ask yourself, “looking at this objectively, could you really believe in all this?” It also shows how religions can get created and develop, and even how a new prophet can be realised. So actually, through the method of humour, it makes some pretty hard-hitting points about the nature of religion.

The cast are a complete joy from start to finish. Gavin Creel, who was great when we saw him in the revival of Hair a couple of years ago, plays Elder Price and he looks absolutely perfect for it – you can’t imagine anyone more bright, clean, and shiny for the role. Mr Creel has a great stage presence and a superb singing voice; he reminds me a little of what a showbiz Greg Rusedski would look like. He also takes Casey Nicholaw’s already amusing and quirky choreography and makes a terrific meal out of it – dancing incredibly athletically and show-offishly, slightly mad dad style, thereby making him look just a little more ridiculous. Elder Price is a bit of a louse in many respects, but because Mr Creel is so likeable on stage you still warm to the character despite his faults.

Likeable in a completely different way is the hopeless Elder Cunningham, played hilariously by Jared Gertner, a little mop-head of neuroses who just wants to be loved, and is thrilled to be best-buddied with the charismatic Elder Price. With his super comic timing and fantastic facial expressions it’s a performance of comedy genius. At odds with his appearance, Mr Gertner is nevertheless a fantastic song-and-dance man which really shines through his performance. Together with Mr Creel their partnership is the classic “Odd Couple”, straight guy/comic guy and it works brilliantly.

There’s also a fantastic performance from Stephen Ashfield as Elder McKinley, head of the Ugandan mission. The missionaries already there have a simple way of coping with life’s difficulties and any internal torments they might have – they just switch it off, like a light, and there’s a brilliant song to illustrate it. Mr Ashfield’s portrayal of a guy occasionally drifting into his natural gayness and then switching it back off again is just hilarious, and he really shines in the Broadway-style big numbers. There’s also an incredible coup de theatre in “Turn it off” when the lights go out – I don’t know how they do it, but it takes your breath away. The huge roar of appreciation at curtain call for Mr Ashfield said it all.

Alexia Khadime plays Nabulungi, the village girl who decides there might be something in this Mormonism. She gives a stunning, tender performance, sings with heart and clarity and very nicely underplays the comedy of her role. She’s quite heart-melting too. Chris Jarman, who was excellent in last year’s Comedy of Errors, is terrific as the ogre General who rules the area with an iron fist and instruments of torture. His hilarious appearance in the final scene completely stops the show. And I really liked Tyrone Huntley, who was very funny in the UK tour of Sister Act, as the hopeless Doctor with an embarrassing medical problem. I’ll stop mentioning cast members now, but they were all absolutely first class.

This ought to run for years and years. If you’re not easily offended, I couldn’t recommend it more strongly. I do hope we get to see it again some time. One of the funniest shows I have ever seen – possibly the funniest. A must-see.