Round the Reviews: Sister Act The Musical

You'll remember, I was so excited about seeing this show.

But Sister Act The Musical failed to live up to expectations.

Sure it was fun. There were funny moments. Some of the songs were sweet. The blokes did a good job in their cameotyped(?!) roles.

But my overriding feeling about it was that it was just all a bit crass.

The supposed heart-string-pulling songs seemed manipulative; the set with the giant Jesus feet and the terrible glitterball Mary bordered on obscene. Some of the innuendo was truly awful (JC was most unimpressed when I told him about the bulging pockets line when I got home!) I tried to say as much in a hastily written review for londonist.

Part of me even wondered if anyone with a particularly religious outlook (and admittedly, a slightly out-of-place funny bone) might've actually found it offensive.

I was worried all this negativity might've been because I'd been lucky enough to see the wonderful Billy Elliot all too recently, so I've been round the reviews to see what everyone else was saying...

Charles Spencer has put together one of the most terrible pieces of reviewing I've seen for a while. Here's the opening:

What is it about Andrew Lloyd Webber and nuns?

There has always been something dark and brooding about Lloyd Webber. Could it be that he harbours dark erotic fantasies about nuns?

Jeez. It gets worse:

Among the support, Katie Rowley Jones makes a sweet novice, Claire Greenway is deliciously plump and funny as the over-enthusiastic Sister Mary Patrick, while Julia Sutton plays the oldest, toughest sister more like Jimmy Cagney than a nun.

I wonder if he's ever described a man as "deliciously plump". It's hardly a review of her performance, is it? Oh, and there's the inevitable pun at the end that no-one needs or cares about, but that makes sure the Torygraph gets on the posters:

I suspect this musical comedy about a nun on the run could prove habit-forming.

Good old Billington gave it an appropriate two stars:

What was originally a fairytale fantasy, however, makes little sense in its new, vulgarised incarnation. In the movie, the music arose naturally from the story: there was even a certain wit about seeing a group of wimpled warblers turned into a cohesive unit. But here, long before the heroine has got to work on their larynxes, they are leaping about the stage like showbiz pros telling us How I Got the Calling.

Over at the Times, Benedict Nightingale says:

a rather sweet, sentimental film has been hyped up, coarsened, given what — were the Palladium flown to Times Square — we'd call the big, brash Broadway treatment.

And while I hate to agree with the Daily Mail, I really think that their reviewer (Quentin Letts) is spot on:

I hated its artistic laziness, its predictability, its incuriosity, its idea that disco is divine and that spirituality can never be found in discreet and dignified worship... From the start there is basically one joke: namely, the spectacle of nuns grooving around on the dance floor. I know I may be taking it too seriously but I found myself recoiling sharply from this story's saccharine values and its bullying gaiety.

...

But oh, the clichés. In any comedy involving a large troupe there seems to be this recipe: one fat character (probably with glasses, looking like ex BBC weatherman Ian McCaskill); one old 'un, invariably a hell raiser; one young innocent. They duly turn up here.

I'm sure, along with the two critics I agree with, that it'll run and run. Can't wait til WEW get to see it...

Theatrical Excitement: Madame De Sade @ Wyndhams Theatre

After being blown away by Ivanov, with Ken Branagh, directed by Michael Grandage, as part of the Donmar West End Season last year, I'm very, very, VERY excited to be seeing Madame De Sade tomorrow night, on what appears to be the second press night.

Hurrah. I was offered the (single, meh) press ticket by my boss. Amazing. I'm so grateful.

The excitement crescendos on a number of levels.

First, and most importantly, I'm getting to see the lovely Dame Judi Dench on stage for the first time. I've been a big fan for a long time now. It probably triggered by seeing her in Mrs Brown, in Bond films, in Shakespeare in Love and on telly. Or by reading about her playing a wonderful Lady Macbeth at the age of 20, while I was studying at Liverpool. (This last fact may or may not be correct - I'm sure it was wonderful, I just don't know how old she was - but surely the point is that my interest was aroused...) Tonight's research has revealed a few more choice nuggets:

• I love the fact that when she played Lady M opposite Ian McKellen at The Other Place in Stratford, Michael Billington was there, reviewing it: "If this is not great acting I don't know what is." (Not that exceptional a quote, I'm sure MB said other things besides, but apologies: I'm using wiki. Here's hoping he's there tomorrow; he might be seeing it tonight, though.)
  
• She's also a singer, having played Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Here it is on YouTube. She played Sally when she was 34. Which kinda kills my current silly "life's-going-to-be-over-when-I'm-30" vibe stone dead...
  

Second, the rest of the cast is pretty impressive. I can't wait to see Rosamund "Perfect Skin" Pike do her thing on stage either. She was at uni with JC, dontcha know.

Third, this is the kind of show that's got even the sensible people at the Guardian getting into mischief: Dame Judi Brings Home the Bacon...

Fourth, and cheeky, I know, but it's a press ticket, so hopefully I'll get a great seat. I saw Ivanov from a vertigo-inducing standing position at the back of Wyndham's, for just a tenner, on the last weekend. Even from that distance, after that many shows, watching the top of Branagh's head and missing some of the play through awkward sight-lines, I could still tell that the acting, the directing, the whole shebang was brilliant. I can't wait to be able to see that from a decent seat (in the stalls?).

It's going to be good.