Her singing may be so-so, but Sheridan’s just scrumptious
SHERIDAN Smith has such scrumptious stage presence. She can make the right corner of her mouth quiver, the tiniest inward dent suggesting naughty mirth. In a small space like London’s fringey Menier theatre the audience can relish every tic and twitch.
Miss Smith, plump as a poussin, is delicious in Michael Mayer’s production of Funny Girl. She takes the title role of Fanny Brice, the 1920s New York showgirl who brought some stumpy comedy to Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies.
Can our Sheridan sing? Up to a point, though it is not the greatest of voices. But she more than compensates for any musical shortcomings with her acting, so that the show’s best-known song, People, becomes something inward-looking and rueful rather than some belted-out torch song.
Then come moments of foolery, when Fanny sticks a cushion up her dress when playing a bride, or when she plays a round little soldier on parade, surrounded by glamorous chorus girls about twice her height, and Miss Smith had the audience howling with laughter. Her stick-on moustache kept wanting to fall off and she came close to corpsing.
The comedy acquired the force of a vortex and we all felt quite exhausted by merriment when the scene ended. She may not be entirely believable as a Hungarian-Jewish gal but never mind.
She is, you will gather, the main reason – though not quite the only reason – to see this show. Darius Campbell is well cast as Fanny’s hunky but hopeless husband, so good-looking beside his froggy little wife. They make a great pair. The three old Brooklyn ladies, the best-friend dance tutor, Mr Ziegfeld himself (veteran Bruce Montague): all are delivered well. The staging could be more adventurous but it tells the story efficiently.
From the hidden orchestra there were maybe one or two mis-parped brass notes and the Menier’s stage is so tiny that the dance scenes feel a bit tight-elbowed. This will change when the show transfers to the West End (the Savoy) in April.
It is rare for such a transfer to be announced even before the show has opened but that’s Sheridan Smith’s box office appeal for you. And she deserves it, for she is all heart, this lady.