The National Lottery’s Big Night of Musicals – A0 Arena, Manchester

Tina – The Tina Turner Musical’s Aisha Jawando embodies the glitz and glamour of musical theatre

The National Lottery’s Big Night of Musicals at A0 Arena, Manchester, broadcast on BBC1 and BBC Radio 2, also available via BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Close your eyes, listen and you would swear it was Tina Turner belting out ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’, ‘Simply the Best’ and ‘Proud Mary’ to bring the curtain down on a brash, diverse and heart-warming evening of show numbers of every colour and nuance in front of a 13,000-strong crowd in Manchester’s heaving A0 Arena.

Open them and you’d still swear it was Turner playing herself in the brash jukebox musical. But it was Aisha Jawando giving it large, a shimmy here, a wiggle there, embodying the glitz and glamour of musical theatre.

This 14-show cavalcade of showbiz glitter, filmed for primetime viewing on BBC1 five days later, was the National Lottery’s thank you to the public who had been instrumental in raising £228 million funding for the arts during the pandemic.

For those who had the T-shirt to prove their support, four free tickets and a show of terrific production values and the pick of the big numbers from current West End and tour productions were their reward.

All tastes were catered for, from Dear Evan Hansen and Waitress to Disney classics Frozen, The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast and those high energy jukebox musicals The Drifters Girl, Dreamgirls, Back to the Future and Bat Out of Hell.

Keala Settle performs a number from & Juliet

For reggae fans ‘One Love’ and ‘Jammin’’ from the new Bob Marley musical Get Up Stand Up! will have gone down a treat while regional theatre wasn’t forgotten with the Hope Mill cast of The Wiz bringing Kansas to Manchester in that spirited Wizard of Oz update.

Jawando apart, the singing honours were shared by Beverley Knight as the Drifters Girl bang on the money as always with ‘Harlem Child’ and Chelsea Halfpenny, niece of 2004 Strictly Come Dancing winner and soap star Jill, with a heart-wrenching ‘She Used to Be Mine’, Sara Bareilles’ 11 o’clock number from Waitress.

On the duetting front, Courtney Stapleton and Shaq Taylor’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ made me want to rush to book for that glorious show when it rocks up in London in June, Samantha Barks and Stephanie McKeon’s ‘I Can’t Love You’ from Frozen was bliss and Keala Settle/David Bedella’s ‘Break Free’ from & Juliet went down a treat.

Just as fascinating as the visual feast of musical talent were the video inserts covering life backstage – the complexity of Carrie Hope Fletcher’s transformation into Cinderella, Wiz producer Ameena Hamid telling compere Jason Manford how important is “bringing Black joy” to the stage, and a look at the great work done by those by scenic designers.

And Beth Hinton-Lever joyfully tossing aside her prosthetic arm to dance in Curve Leicester’s A Chorus Line vividly brought to life how Lottery assistance to organisations like Ramps on the Moon which fight the corner for D/deaf and disabled artists performers has been so vital.

Versatile presenter Manford showed his singing chops as well as comedic talent in holding the whole shebang together and MD Jon Ranger directed a full orchestra with verve and power. A vibrant occasion that fully demonstrated the breadth and diversity of our musical theatre landscape, now thankfully rocking and rolling again.

Jeremy Chapman