(seen at the afternoon performance on 26th July 2025)
This was rushed into the Savoy Theatre to fill a summer gap, following a difficult first staging in Manchester. Its first London preview ran nearly 4 hours according to reports, with actors’ union Equity called in to deal with various cast grumbles.
One of these was costumes not arriving for the first performance. The monkey wondered if those without were made to do the show in their vests and pants... but quite frankly, nobody would have noticed if they had.
This is modern burlesque – striptease for the upper middle classes, who don’t like anyone socially below them to have the real thing and think bodies in rhinestone bikinis are racy and sexy. Really, not – get a life.
Anyway, what we have is a bit like that. This isn’t a proper, hard-hitting musical, fully-fledged and arresting with the edgy vitality of a proper pub pound-in-the-glass routine.
It is a show that deserved to have been worked on far more, a little like “Flashdance” at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 2010. Some of it works incredibly well – a bus journey, the lead solos, a little current joking (Coldplay).
There are also radical cuts required to speed it up. The opening club scene may be flashy, but is superfluous. Open with the church number and take the story in order. Later, every dancer doesn’t need a routine. We get the message, we can see you had to remove most of it to get us out of the theatre before midnight, so let the rest go too; you are right to erase, finish the job, please.
For the most part, the whole just feels unpolished and unfinished. Huge dance routines are truncated, big scenes unfocussed, both through emergency surgery - and the stitched wounds look raw for the most part. Had the show worked out its kinks (literally, in places, there is some adult stuff floating here), we would be talking quite a hit.
The songs are attractive if a little repetitive in sentiment. The performers really make the show.
Club owner Tess (Orfeh) is sympathetic and holds the stage, her club and the show together in a double act with smart-talking (and prayerful) Todrick Hall as sidekick Sean.
A dropped cloth aside, the pairing are the heartbeat which keeps the whole thing from sudden implosion.
On the subject of bombshells, Jess Folley as Ali is the third star. Slightly straining to be heard at times, purely due to the sound system, her wonderful frankness is refreshing, delivered with intuitive comic timing.
She is lucky to play against Paul Jacob French’s Jackson too, both bringing out the best in their characters.
For the dark side, Elly Jay (in for absent Asha Parker-Wallace) as Nikki and George Maguire as evil-ex Vince love their dirty dealings, irritatingly wrapped up a little too quickly, if satisfyingly.
Note too for Jack Dupree and Sophie Cracknell as dancers Trey / Chardonnay and Daphne in small but well-illustrated character roles.
Todrick Hall uses every musical theatre trick and trope to pull this show together, and deserves applause for doing as much as he can.
He is lucky that Marco Marco comes up with outfits and Nate Bertone a suitably flyblown club to wear them in.
A truly mixed bag of an evening, with cracks almost always papered over and enough to amuse and entertain if not remember for very long after.
With luck the show will be revised and re-staged with considerably more time and thought to shaping the material. The monkey would look forward to that.
