Star spangled music
Post-lockdown theatrical entertainment has been a mixed bag – some of us have been accused of being lenient in our criticism…not me guv – and it is clear that producers, fearful of the coffers drying up again, must do all they can to put bums on seats. Hence revival after revival of their most lucrative shows. The Jersey Boys (Trafalgar Studios) is one such production. Drat not another jukebox musical I hear you say and that was my fear too. Based on the life and times of The Four Seasons (probably better known as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons but as with many pop music adventures ‘internal disputes’ lead to disagreements about names and musical provenance) Des McAnuff’s staging is a neatly packaged and very entertaining biographical musical. It is open about how they got to the top, including some shady dealings with ‘The Mob’ and the hit songs are for the most part cleverly weaved into the tale. Those hits enabled them to sell an estimated 100 million records globally and they are also part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. They don’t do anything by half in the USA.
The origins of the band are classic immigrant Americana of which fairy tales are made. On Klara Zieglerova’s evocative scaffolding set a posse of restless young Italian men meet on a dimly lit street in the rough and ready housing projects in New Jersey during the 1950’s. Some are just fooling around but these four are doing some spontaneous harmonious vocal jamming. There began the star spangled dream to becoming a musical phenomenon. Their journey was a catalogue of difficult episodes that almost destroyed them individually (addiction and prison) and could also have put paid to their phenomenal careers. The highs and the lows are well documented in a script co-written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice that pulls no punches. Making it even more engaging and so standing apart from some of the more anodyne jukebox spin offs each of the band member address us directly giving it a docu-musical feel, expressing what was going on in their messed up lives as they rocketed to the top. Of course the gold dust that gives the whole thing the wow factor are the songs which as you sing along will have you thinking “I didn’t know they wrote that”. No, neither did I, which made this voyage of discovery that much more fun. Begging’, Bye, Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye) – which I was convinced was a Bay City Rollers’ original – and the instantly recognisable and ubiquitous during the 80’s, Oh What a Night.
Ben Joyce, making his theatre debut, sounds uncannily like the original Valli with an undertone of self-centred complexity, contrasted with a spunky portrayal of Tommy DeVito by Benjamin Yates giving us a character who would not have been out of place as a gang member in West Side Story, a boy with serious anger management issues. Karl James Wilson is fine as Nick Massi but his literal personality is direct and dull while Adam Bail is a very amiable Bob Gaudio, a man blessed with superb song writing skills. And in a scene stealing cameo Ben Irish makes their manager Bob Crewe a figure of camp fun but with the business brain of a wily old fox.
A show for all seasons and all generations this is a production that will have you on your feet but just as importantly make you appreciate and understand how these four unassuming New Jersey lads journeyed from the streets to stardom.
Jersey Boys – www.jerseyboysmusical.co.uk
