Book: Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy
Music: Matthew Sklar
Lyrics: Chad Beguelin
Director and choreographer: Nick Winston
On the face of it, the New York Jets American Football team might seem more likely visitors to Wembley than a Broadway musical, but here we have the revival of a show that ran for a few months on the Great White Way in 2006. Seen previously in a 2017 United Kingdom tour originating at the Curve Theatre, Leicester, The Wedding Singer, is an adaptation of a hit 1998 film of the same name. It starred Adam Sandler in the title role, played here by Kevin Clifton, who is best known as a professional dancer on television’s Strictly…
This is a show that can only succeed as a crowd pleaser and director/choreographer Nick Winston seems to know that audiences will come expecting big song and dance routines. In this respect, they should not be disappointed. Exuberant performers, glitter, flashing lights, loud music and all the show’s best tunes set the huge and totally characterless Troubadour alight, but the irony of the most famous dancer on stage standing as an onlooker throughout most of the routines does not go unnoticed.
Unfortunately, there are also scenes between the big numbers. In them, Winston’s often lumbering staging fails to capture the flavour of the script’s American humour and gets bogged down in a plot that is, to put in mildly, cheesy. Robbie Hart is a wedding singer who, himself, gets jilted at the altar by his girlfriend Linda and falls for waitress Julia, who is engaged to a complete jerk, city trader Glen. We all know from an early stage where the book by Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy is going, but it takes far too long for it to get there.
Clifton proves to be a lot more than just stunt casting. The pleasing personality, confidence and energy which have served him well on television take him a long way in playing Robbie. A little more subtlety and variety of tone could have taken him still further. Wedding singers are, by repute, fairly ordinary vocalists and Clifton hits that mark comfortably. Similarly, Robbie’s reputation for being a writer of terrible songs allows composer Matthew Sklar and lyricist Beguelin to set the bar low for their pop/rock numbers and sometimes they even manage to clear it.
Francis O’Connor’s set and costume designs give the production the feel of New Jersey in the Reagan era, with a large overhead screen suggesting a drive-in movie venue. Rhiannon Chesterman exudes charm and sings sweetly as Julia, Erin Bell is a very saucy Linda and Jonny Fines draws the hisses as Glen. Tara Verloop as the voluptuous temptress, Holly and Sandra Dickinson as the lustful, rapping granny, Rosie both have show stopping moments.
There are highlights, but, sadly, this wedding is a mismatch of talented performers and sub-standard material. When the production is in celebratory mode, briefly it works, but the overriding impression is of a musical that has been put together mechanically, falling short on both wit and imagination.
Runs until 1 March 2020
The Reviews Hub Score
A mismatch
