If, according to the theatre critic character in Nicholas de Jongh’s Plague Over England, going to theatre for him is about avoiding the cold douche of reality, there’s no such possibility at the Tricycle – as a quote from Time Out on their website has it, “The Tricycle has a soaring reputation for making sure that its audiences engage in what is happening in the world”. And that’s born out with typical Tricycle tenacity and an unexpected dramatic ferocity in the current transfer there of the RSC’s production of Roy Williams’ Days of Significance, which officially opened there last night.
Not that most of the critics were there last night: thanks to one of those press night clashes for which the RSC seem particularly adept (or maybe that should be inept?), the year’s biggest musical was opening in the West End too.
Jersey Boys has been on the cards for months and months, with its press night announced when the show itself was, so you would have thought that the RSC could simply have yielded theirs, even if they got there first. Instead, they stuck to last night as an official opening; but in fact the night before turned into an unofficial one as —without colluding on a decision to go in a night early – many of us had separately requested it. Thus it was that the Trike on Monday looked like a press night, with Nick de Jongh, Georgina Brown, Sussanah Clapp, Paul Taylor, Tim Auld and Michael Coveney amongst those I spotted.
I had missed it at Stratford, where it had been staged as a promenade production in the Swan. Fortunately it was done with the audience seated this time, where it held me pinned to my seat instead of shuffling on my pins. And it gained, I am sure, from an intensity of concentration that isn’t possible when the actors and audience are weaving in and out of each other’s way.
Audiences have also had to be nifty on their feet to avoid the epidemic of jukebox musicals that have been swamping the West End and Broadway stages for the last few years. (Or they’ve simply been on their feet, as these shows build to their inevitable climaxes and virtually insist that the audiences join in). But if Buddy, in its 13-year original West End run (produced by Paul Elliott, the veteran producer who was sat next to me last night with his daughter) and its current return to the Duchess, set the bar low for the biographical jukebox musical that weaves the songs in and out of an attempt to tell the artist’s life story, the arrival of Jersey Boys in the West End last night is a triumph of style and sensation: as its infectious hit parade of pop songs pours over the audience like an unstoppable tidal wave, it becomes impossible to resist, but it is also a show that manages to give them a real emotional connection and context by embedding them into the real-life story of their original creation.
No, these songs aren’t Sondheim and the journey of the show isn’t Shakespearean; but Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman’s book and Des McAnuff’s propulsive production are so skilful that it convinces you that its bubblegum score is worth listening to and the live stories of its makers is worth watching.
Magnificence? You must be joking. We're talking Jersey Boys here -not the Ring Cycle. If Jersey Boys is magnificent what does that make Annie- Monumental? This will haunt you for YEARS! think back on how many musicals Sheridan Morley called the greatest of the decade? or century? Maginicence? Jersey Boys? Bollocks!