Jerry’s Girls – Menier Chocolate Factory

Julie Yammanee, Cassidy Janson and Jessica Martin in Jerry’s Girls at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London. Picture: Tristram Kenton

Jerry’s Girls continues at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London until 29 June 2024.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

‘Look What Happened To Mabel’ to Martin when it was Yammanee so if you could change Martin to Yammanee in first line par starting ‘So wow moments.. ‘, it might be a good idea.

If it’s quantity you’re after and you’re a fan of the Broadway legend who gave us Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles – and who isn’t? – then this 33-song hurtle through the Jerry Herman songbook in 110 minutes (interval included) by a hard-working trio of Jerry’s Girls and an all-female band too will send you home humming some of the greatest show songs ever written.

With Dolly back in the West End for the first time since 1984 shortly after this show’s six-week run is over, it is good to have our appetite whetted. But despite the quality of the material and the professionalism of the cast – and bravo to Cassidy Janson for insisting on taking part on press night after seriously hurting her foot on her way home after the previous night’s show, it was strapped up and she wore flat shoes but otherwise, we’d have been none the wiser – it failed to click with me. The serious songs didn’t move me enough and the funny ones weren’t always funny enough or, in the case of the spoof striptease ‘Take It All Off’ number Herman wrote specially for this 1980s revue, rather unedifying these days, though Jessica Martin (was Me and My Girl really 40 years ago?) gave it her best shot.

And whereas when Georges and Albin sing the exquisite ‘Song on the Sand’ in La Cage, it brings a lump to your throat and a tear to the eye, when performed out of the context of their love affair by Martin, Janson and Julie Yammanee, in an all-female revue, the admiration for the simple beauty of the lyrics “I hear la da da da da da da/Da da da da da da da/And I’m young and in love” does not diminish but the impact is lost.

So wow moments are few and far between although Yammanee does extract all the coarse humour out of ‘Look What Happened to Mabel’ from Mack & Mabel, reputed to be Herman’s favourite yet the public thought the subject matter, of tyrannical director Mack Sennett and his silent movie protégé Mabel Normand, too dark for a musical. Nothing dark about this particularly witty number about “plain little Nellie, the kid from the deli, someone who was as plain as mutton, on the screen is cuter than a button”/“the queen of the corned beef and salami, a glamorous goddess who’s bustin’ her bodice!”

As for Olivier Award winner Janson (for & Juliet) she’s always good to listen to and Matt Cole’s simple choreography fortunately doesn’t impede her to any great extent. Her ‘Time Heals Everything’, again from Mack & Mabel, is a standout and Yammanee, a new name to me, is a revelation. Revues like this are a great shop window for talented artists to show their versatility. When you’re in the limelight for the majority of a show there’s no place to hide and this young performer charmed us all.

The title song from Hello, Dolly! was given the traditional upbeat treatment by Martin and other gorgeous numbers like ‘Before the Parade Passes By’ and ‘It Only Takes a Moment’ made the wait for the full version of that glorious musical easier to bear. ‘The Best of Times’ from La Cage came off better than ‘I Am What I Am’, sung by the three “girls” as they did their make-up and had a fag in their dressing room on Paul Farnsworth’s nicely-thought-out set, while ‘If He Walked Into My Life’ was the most effective of the eight Mame contributions.

Herman conceived this homage to his leading ladies – Dolly Levi, Auntie Mame, ZaZa (Albin’s drag queen persona in La Cage), Mabel Normand and Countess Aurelia (Dear World) – in conjunction with Larry Alford for a little revue in 1981, reaching Broadway four years later with choreography by Wayne Cilento for a short run, and the Menier’s is a tweaked version of that. It is returning to London after nine years, having played at St James Studio [now The Other Palace], then transferring to the Jermyn Street Theatre in 2015.

The finale with the three stars namechecking all the legendary “Jerry’s Girls” who had preceded them – it reads like a who’s who of Broadway – then the entire band [take a well-deserved bow MD Sarah Travis, associate MD Wendy Gadian, Hsiao Ling Huang (cello), Amy Baldwin (bass), Hannah Morgan (reeds), Becky Waite (trumpet) and Calie Hough (drums)], and finally themselves, brings the show to a rousing climax. However, it’s a lightweight show Hannah Chissick has directed despite all the feathers and her inventiveness, fine for a Thursday or Saturday matinee if you’re going up to London for a two-show day but not memorable enough to justify a long journey on its own. Not ‘The Best of Times’ perhaps but a decent attempt.

Jeremy Chapman