Never Give Up On A Dream – Thespie

Never Give Up On A Dream, streamed on Thespie.com.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

For some musical theatre fans, the sight of a small group of extraordinarily talented women performing show tunes in complementary red outfits will evoke memories of the iconic 2010 New York Philharmonic concert in honour of Stephen Sondheim’s 80th birthday. But after the year we’ve had and the amount we’ve had to drink by 8pm on New Year’s Eve, we don’t need all that pomp and sophistication: one piano and the cast of Pretty Woman: The Musical singing some Bryan Adams songs will do just nicely.

Pretty Woman (music and lyrics by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance) opened in London early in 2020 to solid reviews but was forced to close soon afterward – along with the rest of the West End – when the pandemic hit. This concert reunites eight of its cast for a short run through some of the best songs from that show, plus some other great tunes tossed in to keep the party going.

Streamed concerts have come a long way in the last few months: the filming of this performance is excellent. The cast are well-lit, the picture is sharp, and the cameras sweep back and forth elegantly. Musical director Gareth Weedon does a fine job behind the piano, though some songs rely more heavily on slightly dodgy backing tracks (as wonderful as synthesisers are, they have never once synthesised a convincing string section).

Pretty Woman’s titular pretty woman Aimie Atkinson kicks off the show with an excellent performance of ‘Anywhere but Here’, from Pretty Woman. She is then joined by her co-star Rachael Wooding for a backing track-driven duet of Roxette’s ‘It Must Have Been Love’, before the rest of the cast (Jemma Alexander, Hannah Ducharme, Serina Mathew, Joanna Woodward and Charlotte Yorke) join in with ‘(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman’, originally by Carole King.

The cast’s unrehearsed banter is bubbly and charming. For those of us whose festive season has been decidedly less social than usual, it is refreshing to hear the giggles and overlapping conversation of a group who clearly get on very well. This chemistry extends to their musical performance, with excellent harmonies backing many of the numbers. There are a few slightly suspect notes here and there in the solos to remind you that this stream is recorded as-live without autotune and studio trickery, but nothing that should put you off.

About halfway through the show, the cast is joined by their token man, Bob Harms – who plays Happy Man/Mr. Thompson in Pretty Woman – to perform the classic ‘Who Can I Turn To’ with gorgeous vocal tones reminiscent of the old school big-hitters of musical theatre. He returns later for an ebullient finale of ‘I Can’t Go Back’ from Pretty Woman.

In all, this is a fun and well-filmed concert, let down only by occasionally iffy backing tracks and the short running time of only 50 minutes. If you were lucky enough to enjoy the stage production of Pretty Woman before its break – or even if you didn’t but are a fan of Bryan Adams or new musical theatre – this is well worth your time.

Ian Bowkett