LEGALLY BLONDE THE MUSICAL | STAGE REVIEW
****
The New Theatre, Cardiff, Mon 20 Nov.
Legally Blonde is seen by most as a bit of a bubble-gum musical: very pink, overblown, full of attitude and plenty of pop. This new touring production doesn’t quite hit the highs of the previous West End run or UK tour, but it does come with added bite.
Local girl Lucie Jones is fantastic as the lead Elle Woods. She manages to walk the thin pink line between being blonde but “not that blonde”. Jones’ Elle is always a step ahead of her friends but a step behind her original love interest, Warner Huntington III – a slightly unconvincing Liam Doyle. For an audienc, who obviously knew the musical very well, she kept the performance fresh and threw in touches that made the role her own, endearing her to an already partisan crowd. Jones was at her best when playing against the stronger performances amongst the lead cast, giving her something concrete to work with, but the lacklustre performances of the ensemble left Act 1 feeling a little flat.
The opening of Legally Blonde The Musical should be twenty minutes of non-stop, over-the-top, pop-musical perfection. It’s a dream for an ensemble of young women who get to start (and potentially steal) the show, thanks to an excellent Greek Chorus conceit. But the opening night at The New Theatre felt like the opening night of a tour, not eight weeks and nine venues in: tentative and underplayed is not what people came to see.
In Act 2, the chorus take a backseat to the leads and all for the better. Eastenders’ Rita Simons is excellent as Elle’s older trailer-trash confidante and David Barrett gets better and better as the charming and genuine Emmett Forrest. By the end he and Elle can’t keep their hands, nor their lips, off each other.
However, it is the relationship between Bill Ward’s Professor Callahan and Jones’ Elle Woods that sets this production apart. Ward, with the wide-legged stance of the predatory male, struts around the law school he rules through “fear and shock and awe”. He may be referencing Dubya but it is the current US President that is brought to mind. Seeing this alpha-male impose himself on the much younger woman he has a professional responsibility for was made all the more chilling in our current post-Weinstein climate. The shocked silence that followed felt more real than previous stage and film versions, made all the more acute after a hilarious performance of musical masterwork There! Right There!
By the end the energy was at its height and the entire cast were firing as one wishes they had been from the off. A double-bubble performance of two halves, with plenty to chew over.
words John-Paul Davies
photo Robert Workman
Legally Blonde runs at The New Theatre until Sat 25 Nov. For more info, follow the link or call (029) 2087 8889