Steve On Broadway (SOB)

Did London Critics Find Jersey Boys Too Good To Be True?

Did London Critics Find Jersey Boys Too Good To Be True?

Last evening, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 2006 enjoyed its first night -- or as we Yanks would say, "opening night" -- at London's Prince Edward Theatre.

Lest any Brits think this is some pastoral show about farm boys growing up in the Bailiwick of Jersey, Jersey Boys instead tells the story of New Jersey's fifties pop sensations, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Reviews ranged from praise to borderline pans.

Complimenting that "Jersey Boys is a blue-collar, meat-and-potatoes, straight-up-no-chaser kind of show," Charles Spencer of The Telegraph offers the most unqualified praise: "It has a quality you rarely find in musicals -- gritty honesty -- as well as the best collection of pop hits since Mamma Mia!... [T]he story is fascinatingly told through the eyes of each of the original band members, so that the audience gets a range of viewpoints. Jersey Boys superbly captures the thrills and tensions of four testosterone-charged young men discovering fame and fortune after years of dogged failure."

Despite his admission that "Compendium shows...aren’t my favourite tipple," The Times' Benedict Nightingale applauds with four out of five stars: "It has the character, the narrative interest and the sense of place -- as the backcloth indicates, the industrial badlands west of the Hudson River -- to rise way above its genre.... Indeed, there were times last night when I felt the performers were making even The Beatles sound somewhat lacking in musical texture. Since when did John, Paul or George have the soaring falsetto that Ryan Molloy’s Valli effortlessly produces?... Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, have a fine eye for what’s unusual and extreme."

Noting how he "thoroughly enjoyed it, despite some clunkingly awful lines," The Daily Mail 's Quentin Letts is primarily positive: "There are two remarkable things about Jersey Boys, the Frankie Valli bio-musical which had a splashy opening last night. The first is the fluting voice of Ryan Molloy who plays 1960s pop canary Valli and sings like a man possessed. The second is the fact that a show with quite so many cliches and such a humdrum plot still manages to elicit a tear or two."

Concluding that "This may be an American import too many," Evening Standard's Nicholas de Jongh offers three out of five stars: "Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman...have injected regular slugs of trenchant truth-telling into their musical biography.... Des McAnuff's slickly animated production takes far too long to reach the glory days, having spent excessive time with Carter's DeVito, the tough-talking, self-admiring founder who recruits Frankie and song-writer, Stephen Ashfield's oddly insipid Bob Gaudio. The show does, however, at last fly high with some of those hit anthems, dynamically staged. (As Valli) Molloy exercises an arresting, powerhouse of a voice, that ascends from tenor to falsetto in emotional bounds..."

Criticizing Jersey Boys as "a case of 'Oh What A Faintly Frustrating Night,'" Paul Taylor of The Independent offers a mixed review that ends on the downbeat: "The book by Woody Allen collaborator, Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice has a terse, savvy wit.... And in strong, soaring voice, Ryan Molloy skilfully intensifies the emotional power as the diminutive Frankie.... [T]he idea of Jersey and many of the cultural references fail to stir the requisite strength of emotion in a British audience. So here, much of the short-winded drama feels like an exercise in vicarious nostalgia -- a trip down somebody else's memory lane."

As of this writing, no review is currently posted on The Guardian's Web site.

So it's a mixed bag for Jersey Boys in London. Will ticket sales increase as a result? Well, coming too soon on the heels of that other, more-acclaimed American export, that may be too good to be true.

This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).

Related Stories:
Oh What A Night: Jersey Boys In London (March 18, 2008)
Go East, Young Musical, Go East (July 26, 2007)
West End Boys? (March 26, 2007)
BOYS' BIG NIGHT OUT: And The Tony Goes To... Complete List of Winners (June 12, 2006)

Labels: Broadway, Critics' Capsule, Jersey Boys, Jukebox Musical, London, Musical, Ryan Molloy, Transfer

posted by Steve On Broadway (SOB) @ Wednesday, March 19, 2008