Picture: Roy Tan
Chicago the Musical continues at the Phoenix Theatre, London.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
The critics are giving this revival of Chicago a rough ride, some only giving it two stars, but don’t be put off – it’s still a very entertaining night out.
How could it be otherwise? Bob Fosse’s ground-breaking vision of this black satire remains intact and the all-black outfits, monochrome set and ultra-precise dance routines look unchanged from the show’s last revival that ran for almost 15 years in the West End to 2012.
Chicago is being sold on the West End debut of Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr as shyster lawyer Billy Flynn. Not previously renowned for musicals, the American star has quite a fan club here judging from the prolonged applause. He is cuddly rather than sleazy and sings adequately rather than memorably.
What this basically true story of two celebrated prohibition-era Chicago murderesses, Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, is a little short of is heart. Everyone bar the reporter is either nasty, slimy, villainous or in the case of Roxie’s pitifully hen-pecked husband Amos simply thick, so the audience has nobody to root for.
The only time we get emotionally involved is when Amos sings the tear-jerking ‘Mr Cellophane’ about nobody knows he’s there. It is Kander and Ebb at their best and Paul Rider does the lyrics proud.
Their score (book by Fosse and Fred Ebb), from Velma’s dramatic intro ‘All That Jazz’ and ‘Cell Block Tango’, where a row of death row inmates relate their heinous crimes, to Roxie and Velma’s cynical ‘Class’ duet and ‘Razzle Dazzle’ where showboating lawyer Billy instructs Roxie on how to play the jury, is full of good content.
For all the bare flesh, Chicago is funny and stylish rather than sexy and, in my view, is some way behind its Kander and Ebb stablemate Cabaret, a musical that does have a heart and, done well, can be a shattering experience.
Belgian ballet-trained actress Sarah Soetaert reprises the role of dizzy blonde Roxie she played at the Garrick and Cambridge back in the day. She wants to be a Broadway star but is only a star-struck waitress who basks in the front-page publicity her notoriety gets her.
Josefina Gabrielle makes Velma a classy broad, a cabaret singer who shot her husband and sister when she found them in bed together and now finds herself upstaged in the celebrity stakes when Roxie gets Billy’s attention and all the publicity.
All’s well that ends well as both get off and cash in on their notoriety by forming a successful song and dance act. They are excellent in both departments.
Gabrielle is one of many who played Roxie in the last revival but this is her first Velma, while Ruthie Henshall completes the full set as prison matron Mama Morton, having played Roxie and Velma in previous incarnations.
‘When You’re Good to Mama’ is her big number and she gives it a rare old belt. This Mama does ‘favours’ for the inmates, in return robbing them blind with her charges, and I could have done with Henshall making her a bit meaner.
A D Richardson, who plays Mary Sunshine, the reporter, has a big voice and one big number ‘A Little Bit of Good’ as well as contributing to the team effort in ‘We Both Reached for the Gun’ and the sinewy ensemble, as you would expect, dance up a storm.
The 14-strong orchestra under maestro Ian Townsend are part of the furniture at the back of the stage giving it plenty of oomph, particularly the brass section who deservedly get an ovation of their own for the Entr’acte which opens Act II.
Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie is credited as director and Ann Reinking as choreographer of this, Broadway’s and the West End’s longest-running American musical which intially saw the light of day in 1975 and first came to London for 600 performances four years later.
But it was the 1997 revival, with the unforgettable Ute Lemper as Velma, Henshall as Roxie and Henry Goodman as the oily Flynn, which turned out to be the biggest hit. As that one went on to 2012 you might well have thought that everyone who wanted to see Chicago will already have seen the show at least once.
Just six years on, we shall learn soon enough whether there is a new generation demand for it back. It is still a slick and sassy eyeful.
Jeremy Chapman
Readers may also be interested in:
Chicago in the West End – we interview Ruthie Henshall, Josefina Gabrielle, Sarah Soetaert & Cuba Gooding Jr
Tickets for the West End production of Chicago are available HERE.
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