Funny Girl at Theatre Marigny, Paris.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Watching pocket rocket Christina Bianco belt out ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’ to bring the curtain down in the final week of Funny Girl’s triumphant four-month stay in Paris was to see musical theatre at its finest.
For a wet Wednesday when you thought every Parisian who’d wanted to see this Jule Styne-Bob Merrill musical, based on the life of early 20th century Broadway comedienne Fanny Brice, had already seen it, there was an exceptionally good house at the 1,000-seater Marigny and, boy, did they take the diminutive Bianco to their hearts.
Good things, they say, come in small packages. Parisians are used to having their star entertainers small – Edith Piaf was only 4ft 8 and Charles Aznavour 5ft 3 – and Bianco, a powerhouse talent in a tiny 4ft 11 frame, pushes all the right buttons.
Better known previously for her impressions and as a YouTube star, Bianco had us rolling down the aisles six years ago with her hilarious puncturing of showbusiness greats in the satirical revue Forbidden Broadway. But somehow the West End has not found a way since to capitalise on this exceptional talent.
Finally, Stephen Mear, who directed and choreographed this first production of Funny Girl in Paris, found the right vehicle in the musical forever associated with Barbra Streisand. In fact, Funny Girl in 1966 would be the only time Streisand appeared in a West End show.
Mear knew what he was about in casting Bianco as Broadway misfit Brice, a real-life star a century ago who reached the top against the odds by sheer hard work, self-promotion and self-belief.
And she got there despite being ‘short and plain’, a jolie laide as the French would say, and not having a dancer’s legs. She looked out of place there yet went on to top the bill with her unusual mixture of comedy and song at the Ziegfeld Follies and become a Broadway legend.
We get a taste of the ambition that drives her upwards with ‘I’m The Greatest Star’ as she looks at herself in the mirror and sees her dream of Broadway looking back at her.
As a New Yorker, Bianco’s Bronx-Jewish accent and mannerisms have to be authentic but she rattles off her lines at such a clip you couldn’t be sure the audience gets every throwaway punchline.
The French surtitles at either side of the stage help but translating jokes is a thankless task and some of the humour inevitably gets lost. No matter, they laughed enthusiastically if sometimes slightly off the pace.
But this Funny Girl can also do serious along with the best. Her versions of ‘People’ and my idea of the show’s best song, ‘The Music That Makes Me Dance”, Merrill’s beautiful lyric to Styne’s lush score, tug at the heart.
And then that soaring finale, the reprised ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’, ensuring a standing ovation. Not that there had been much doubt about it before that 11 o’clock number (and for once it really was 11!) but it was a thrilling end to a magical evening.
If I’m rabbiting on about one member in a cast of 21, it’s because it is almost a one-woman show. It is a good but by no means great musical, relying entirely on its lead being perfectly cast and not getting much of a start from Isabel Lennart’s bland book.
When reviewing Sheridan Smith’s Brice at the Menier (later to transfer to the Savoy) in 2015 I said it was a five-star performance in a three-star show. Bianco’s Brice is a five-star performance in a five-star show.
Apart from the spectacular dance routines, there’s not much the supporting cast has to do except support. Sure, there’s the ups-and-downs of her marriage to Ashley Day’s handsome rogue gambler Nick Arnstein.
Fanny is so besotted she can’t see it will all end in tears, giving him a fortune to fund the shady deal that gets him jailed for embezzlement. Their duet on ‘Who Are You Now?’ after his release plays beautifully.
Matthew Jeans, as Fanny’s best friend and mentor, yearns for her to look at him the way she looks at Arnstein but that’s never going to happen. Rachel Stanley does a good turn as Fanny’s protective mother, Mark Inscoe has his moments as Ziegfeld and there are nice cameos from Ashley Knight, Shirley Jameson, Jessica Buckby and Isabel Canning.
Peter McKintosh’s stunning set and costumes are as lavish as we have come to expect from a country which subsidises the arts, James McKeon directs an orchestra which treats Styne’s eloquent music with the respect it deserves, and the long-legged ensemble dance up a storm. What’s not to like?
The glitz and glamour of a long-ago Broadway very different from today has rarely, if ever, been more spectacularly conveyed.
Meanwhile, the Chatelet, the Paris theatre which first started putting on classic American musicals in English, announces that its 2020 production will be a revisiting of 42nd Street which proved a hit with Parisians four years ago. It will run from 21 November to 17 January, 2021.
Jeremy Chapman
Readers may also be interested in reading:
INTERVIEW: Christina Bianco and Ashley Day star in Funny Girl at Theatre Marigny, Paris.
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.