JADAR

★★★★☆

Come and meet those dancing feet at Opera House Manchester, as Quays Street is transformed into 42nd Street!

42nd Street is one of the most iconicn musicals of all time, in large part because of its sublime score. A jukebox musical of sorts, it uses songs from the film adaptation of the original novel, upon which both the film and musical are based, as well as songs that Al Dubin and Harry Warren wrote for other films.

This means that, even without having seen 42nd Street before, one might recognise some songs from other films. There are also some theatre standards, such as the title song, ‘We’re in the Money’, and ‘Lulluby of Broadway’, which even an average Joe might be familiar with.

The other defining aspect of this musical is its tap-dancing. As far as tap-dancing musicals go, 42nd Street is up there with Anything Goes. There are several ensemble-led tap-dancing extravaganzas in the show, which aid in transporting any regional British audience to old Broadway.

A strength of this specific adaptation of the musical – which premiered at Curve ahead of a London transfer and now a UK tour with a slightly different lead cast – is the terrific performers.

Anything Goes was a star-maker for two women of colour: Carly Mercedes Dyer, who is currently leading the first UK tour of The Drifters Girl (which we reviewed in Manchester last week), and Nicole-Lily Baisden, who plays leading lady Peggy Sawyer in Anything Goes. Angel-faced and tantalisingly talented, Baisden is a joy to watch. Peggy is an archetype; a virtuous good girl with few discernable personality traits – but Baisden makes the archetypal character charming, and her performance is captivating.

Peggy’s love interest, Billy Lawlor, the male lead in the fictional Broadway show, is played by American actor Sam Lips, who starred in the original cast of The Cher Show. He’s a real triple-threat, who perfectly conveys Billy’s yearning for Peggy.

Samantha Womack, who has made a name for herself playing ice queens, is perfectly cast as the devilish Dorothy Brock, the star of the fictional musical. She makes Dorothy appear vulnerable and damaged. Whilst Peggy is a naive starlet, Dorothy is a middle-aged faded diva, trapped in a relationship with a sugar daddy; the two characters are perfectly foiled.

Her comic, sleazy sugar daddy, Abner Dillon, is played to perfection by Off West End Award nominee Anthony Ofoegbu.

Her real-life partner, Oliver Farnworth (Coronation Street), who she met on The Girl on the Train, plays her true love, Pat Denning. He makes the most of his limited stage time; he’s very charming.

I recently interviewed Farnworth over Zoom – and I also ended up interviewing Womack, who came out of the shower whilst I was chatting to Farnworth!

The male lead, Julian Marsh, the top director on Broadway, is played by Michael Praed (Robin of Sherwood). He makes Marsh multifaceted; he is ruthless but compassionate. He closes the show with ’42nd Street’, where he gets to show off his impressive vocal range. Praed played Pat is Leicester and London; it’s great that he now gets to lead the show.

The musical-within-a-musical’s writers, two comic characters with zero character development, are delightfully played by Faye Tozer from Steps and national treasure Les Dennis. They have brilliant chemistry. Hilariously, they star in the show-within-a-show, their characters called the “comic characters”, which feels marvellously meta. They appear in a wedding/divorce scene which adds absolutely nothing to the plot but is lots of fun.

I interviewed Tozer at The Stage Debut Awards 2023.

Whilst the fictional musicals’s choreographer, Andy Lee, is usually played by Alyn Hawke, we saw understudy George Jordan Crouch. Andy is very much a supporting character but Crouch had me captivated whenever he was onstage. He, Lips and Baisden led the tap-dancing curtain call, enthralling audiences one final time.

Where the show struggles is its design. The set is nice enough but not elaborate enough for the show. There are some pieces of set that are brought on and off but nothing grand. It’s a Broadway musical without the Broadway magic.

Some of the costumes are gorgeous whilst others are icky. In particular, I found the blue and red costumes in the final number to be a bit garish. I thought I was watching the ill-fated Spiderman musical (yes, that’s a real thing).

I caught the previous London revival of 42nd Street a few years back. Production-wise, this new version pales in comparison to that one. The previous production was a great big Broadway show.

Whilst that version had actual Broadway signs, all lit up, this one merely had moving images of Broadway signs on a screen at the back of the stage (I hate how digital design is beginning to replace set).

The previous production had a staircase on which the performers tap-danced, and at one point, there was a huge mirror at the back of the stage; the performers danced on the floor in a circle, with the mirror allowing the audience to see what they were doing. It was utterly mesmerising. Whilst the new production is stylish, the previous production was a spectacle.

The story is unsurprisingly dated but the issues surrounding the hardships of navigating success in showbiz remain relevant. Most of the characters are archetypal but they are all thoroughly likeable – and there is a nice mix of personalities amongst the many characters so you forget how archetypal they all are.

The musical, like all old-school musicals, sometimes lacks substance, but you don’t really care; it’s joyous and the tap-dancing is mesmerising. This new production has some questionable design choices but, overall, it’s sexy, sparkly and stylish. If you want to escape for a few hours, come and meet those dancing at Opera House Manchester!

42nd Street runs at Opera House Manchester until October 21. It wraps up its UK tour at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, where it runs from October 24 to 28. It then runs at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, Canada from December 9 to January 21, with a slightly different lead cast, some of whom starred in the Leicester and London productions which preceded the UK tour.

Photo: Johan Persson