Pretty Woman The Musical – New Wimbledon Theatre and Touring

Ben Darcy and Oliver Savile in Pretty Woman The Musical at the New Wimbledon Theatre, London and Touring. Picture: Marc Brenner

Pretty Woman The Musical was reviewed at the New Wimbledon Theatre, London. The tour continues until 28 September 2024.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

What a curate’s egg of a musical Pretty Woman is! In football parlance, a game of two halves. The first act is loud, charmless, short of wit and chemistry but long on forgettable songs (though ‘Something About Her’ and ‘Freedom’, Oliver Savile’s two solos, are excused); the second is altogether sharper and funnier (especially when Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba takes over the MD’s baton to conduct La Traviata) and the Bryan Adams-Jim Vallance songwriting team gets its second wind.

But it’s hard to capture the sweetness of the box-office-smash movie we all loved back in the 1990s in what is essentially an unsavoury subject – a rich businessman buying a high-spirited escort for a week to make him look good at a swanky charity bash, a night at the opera and at important business receptions, then falling in love with her – to a loud late ’80s/early ’90s rock score and without Julia Roberts’ wit in making it acceptable.

In this day and age, it’s hardly a suitable storyline if you wanted a family musical and the book, by Garry Marshall and JF Lawton for the most part looks its age. Even so, a strong Act II makes up somewhat for a clunky script and sends the fans home happy – a scenario that will be repeated for months to come as the year-long UK and Ireland tour which began last October is not even halfway through its busy itinerary.

The advertised star of the show, Amber Davies, is currently busy taking part in TV’s Dancing On Ice, but there are three very capable covers on hand to cover the role of sex worker Vivian Ward, the part that gave Samantha Barks her Broadway bow in 2018 before the show hit London in 2020 for a Covid-interrupted run that lasted until last year.

This time it was Sydnie Hocknell in the Vivian hot seat – she showed plenty of fire, particularly in her best number ‘This is My Life’ – but Elly Jay and Rebekah Bryant are also listed, so let’s hear it for the alternates, covers and swings. What a fabulous job they do everywhere, up and down the country.

Savile is in fine voice throughout as suave millionaire Edward Lewis, his ‘You And I’ with the ensemble in the hilarious opera scene particularly pleasing, and Natalie Paris, in 2018 the first of many West End Jane Seymours in Six, steals every scene she is in as the sassy Kit, Vivian’s no-nonsense best friend and a streetwalker who wants to work for the police rather than be hounded by them. She brightens up the already neon-lit stage with her big number ‘Rodeo Drive’. We could have done with more of her.

The likeable Oduba makes the most of his dual role, providing what laughs there are, and he still remembers those Strictly moves; Ben Darcy is suitably slimy as Lewis’s corrupt, money-grabbing adviser; while Chomba Taulo looks a little uncomfortable as bigwig David Morse. A big shoutout to Lila Falce-Bass and Josh Damer-Jennings for their Violetta and Alfredo in the opera scene. In her first professional role since graduating from Italia Conti, Falce-Bass’ reception for her astounding soprano was thoroughly merited.

A decent cast gets as much as they can out of an uneven script and a positive mention for the six-strong band under MD Griff Johnson, the glitzy costumes (Tom Rogers) and atmospheric set (David Rockwell). Director Jerry Mitchell’s choreography, particularly of the La Traviata scene, is good to look at too on an evening that takes off now and then but not often enough.

Jeremy Chapman