When was the first time you became aware of Cher? For me, it was a VHS tape of classic Scooby-Doo episodes that included a guest appearance from Sonny and Cher. The next time I encountered her was through music TV channels: autotune karaoke fave Believe and pleather party anthem Turn Back Time. By the time of her turn in Burlesque, one of the best-worst movie musicals of all time, I was totally enamoured and mystified by her: who and what is Cher? Cartoon celebrity? LGBTQ idol? Hollywood dame? Cher is all those things and a hell of a lot more, bitches.
Directed and choreographed by Strictly’s Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabuse respectively, The Cher Show: A New Musical is less of your standard pop star tribute and more of a surreal fever dream. The concept is simple on the surface: a journey through Cher’s life, from her childhood as Cherilyn Sarkisian – born to singer Georgia Holt and an Armenian truck driver – to her complicated marriage to the controlling Sonny Bono and their music and variety show success, to her striking out on her own to Oscar, solo chart and infomercial success.
What we get, however, are triple Chers (Millie O’Connell as ‘Babe’, Danielle Steers as ‘Lady’ and Debbie Kurup as ‘Star’) separated by three defining eras – gliding in and out of each other’s lives like Fairy Chermothers or Scrooge’s ghosts warning him of his past, present and future. When they’re first seated in front of glittering dressing room mirrors rattling through rapid-fire quips in matching Cher voices and outfits, you might think you’re having a stroke.
Of course, surrealness has become part of the Cher package. You only have to remember her one-woman performance of West Side Story on The Cher Show series – playing every single part – to put this Multiverse of Madness into perspective. Some might call it ego (how many Chers do you really need?), but with her, and perhaps I’m being generous as a long-time fan, it’s more about ambition. “My mother once told me to marry a rich man,” the singer once said in a now-viral TV appearance, quoted brilliantly in the musical. “And I said, mother – I am a rich man.”
Cher, in case you weren’t aware, is also a whole book of ‘boss bitch’ affirmations, coarse language The Cher Show tells us she uses to emphatically empowering effect. Women of her generation weren’t supposed to talk, dress and act like this, but Cher isn’t most women; nor is she of any particular generation anymore. Each lead actress is exceptional in delivering these zingers, to say nothing of elevating Cher’s voice to Broadway heights and quick-changing into more and more excessive Bob Mackie designs – a teetotal Cher’s only vice. However, Steers is the real scene-stealer: a phenomenal voice backed by the confidence of a consummate diva.
The trio is backed by a nuanced performance from Lucas Rush as Sonny, who you love to hate and hate to love just as the tortured Cher does. (Her burnout at the peak of the duo’s power packs a particular punch in today’s world of systematic overwork and underpay.) Not to be ignored, the staging and set design are efficient and clever, with passing years seamlessly incorporated into the design of shifting set pieces to subtly situate us in time and place.
Cher fans, of course, are here for the music back catalogue. You forget just how many hits a star that has shone brightly as her rhinestone jeans and cowboy boots for six decades has, and there are some more recent inclusions (You Haven’t Seen The Last Of Me, Woman’s World) that remind you why Cher is the queen of reinvention – the blueprint for the likes of Madonna and Gaga. Music, television, stage, film and advertising: Cher has conquered more or less everything being in the limelight has to offer.
Now even her life story, as this improbably fantastic show demonstrates, is yet another creative commodity for her, confirming the icon’s passing from showbiz legend to showbiz myth. And mythologising someone as larger than life as Cher feels more natural than most of her is these days. They say all that’ll be left after the world ends are cockroaches and Cher, a backhanded way of complimenting the Goddess Of Pop’s uncanny knack to survive the harsh world of fame. The Cher Show is certainly another successful chapter added to a never-ending biography: if you aren’t a fan going in, you’ll definitely leave as one.
New Theatre, Cardiff, Tue 23 Aug
The Cher Show: A New Musical runs until Sat 27 Aug. Tickets: £20-£45.50. Info: here
words HANNAH COLLINS
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