Dreamgirls
Music: Henry Krieger Book and lyrics: Tom Eyen Director: Casey Nicholaw
Savoy Theatre, London WC2 (0844-871 7687) Booking until 21 October Running time: 2hrs 30mins (including interval)
Without question, the biggest reason to buy a ticket to Dreamgirls is Amber Riley, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. The American actress, best known for her role in the TV series Glee, stars here as Effie White, the lead singer of a fame-hungry girl group who finds herself edged out by their smooth-talking manager – also her lover – just as The Dreamettes are hitting the big time. Riley has the voice and stage presence to make “even the more ordinary numbers sound like showstoppers”. And when she reaches the “absolute belter” that closes the first half – And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going – she has the audience leaping to its feet. It’s not just Riley, though. This sparkling production offers “joyous” and “unflagging” choreography, “more deluxe costume changes than there are days in December”, and a “tremendous gusto of soul and gaiety of spirit”. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that?
Me, said Ann Treneman in The Times. Dreamgirls stormed Broadway in 1981 (and there was a successful film version in 2006), but here it feels “dated and formulaic”, with a plot you might generously call “skimpy”. Dramatically speaking, I agree, said Paul Taylor in The Independent. The piece is “not quite wide or deep enough” to qualify as a great musical. Nevertheless, it’s a “powerful story of how music can sell its soul to avarice”. It is also, by any standards, a “fast-moving blast” of a show which “drives forward with captivating fluidity”. Not profound, perhaps – but definitely a “great night out”.
I found it “dazzling”, said Henry Hitchings in the London Evening Standard – a “lavish and richly emotional musical” full of bold, dynamic performances. Joe Aaron Reid radiates menace and ambition as the manager, Curtis, while Adam J. Bernard is extraordinary as Jimmy Early, a singer whose “stage antics make James Brown look restrained”. But on a stage full of “great singers”, Riley as Effie is a notch above them all, said Lyndsey Winship in The Guardian. “You’re gonna love me,” she sings, her heart breaking, her voice switching from “a dagger to a whisper”. It’s “not an appeal, it’s an order”.