The sorority has given her friends for life (who even eventually become a Greek Chorus in her mind,) but the relationship with Warner (Alistair Toovey, looking more like Gavin Leatherwood than ever) isn't going the way she thinks it is: As he prepares to go to Harvard Law School, she expects him to propose; instead he breaks up with her.
With political ambitions, Warner has decided Elle would make a bit too trivial a wife for him, and has soon paired up with the much more respectable Vivienne (Vanessa Fisher). Not that this is enough to stop Elle, who decides to get into Harvard to follow him, and like most things she puts her mind to, succeeds. But she hasn't really thought much beyond getting her place, and once there she struggles not only with a much steeper learning curve than she was expecting, but also with being at the bottom of the social pile of preppy students who see her as being all surface.
The film is from 2001 and this adaptation premiered in 2007, long enough that some elements and attitudes could have already dated. But with SIX's Lucy Moss directing, the casting is a bit more diverse in race, body type and gender than when this was last seen in London; add to that Bowman's bubbly likeability and you largely forget that the show's underdog heroine is basically one of the most privileged people on earth. Instead we get to root for Elle as the comedy of her being woefully unprepared for the notorious Professor Callahan's (Eugene McCoy) class gives way to her letting her natural intelligence and instincts take control, getting a coveted internship with him on a high-profile murder case.
With Warner clearly a wrong'un the story needs another male lead, and the chemistry between Bowman and Michael Ahomka-Lindsay's Emmett is charming, but clearly the real emotional heart of the show is the relationship between Elle and down-on-her-luck beautician Paulette. This too feels like a new take, as Nadine Higgin's Paulette is far from a complete disaster zone who needs a man to bring her back to life; she just needs a little push from Elle to get her confidence back, and her frisky romance with UPS delivery driver Kyle (Dominic Lamb) is just the icing on the cake of her story.
O'Keefe & Benjamin's songs are generally lively toe-tappers without being hugely memorable; the title song, the opener "Omigod You Guys" and "There! Right There!" (probably better known as the "Gay or European" song) are the highlights, and Ellen Kane's choreography reaches its apex in second act opener "Whipped into Shape," which introduces the fitness queen and murder suspect Brooke (Lauren Drew) with a dizzying skipping-rope routine. Laura Hopkins' set is fringed by blonde locks and cleverly slots its parts together in different ways to create the scene changes, and I liked the way the design team, which also includes Jean Chan on costumes, Philip Gladwell on lighting and Queen Bee on wigs, hair and makeup, have colour-coded the show: Not just her trademark pink for Elle and her chorus, but beige/olive for the laywers, orange for anything relating to Paulette, and teal surrounding Brooke.
Legally Blonde also serves as a great comeback to anyone who thinks making a show more inclusive is to suck all the fun out of it: Leaving aside the fact that the inclusivity is part of the fun anyway, Moss and dramaturg Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong's little tweaks to the show (which mainly bring it up to date in terms of technology and pop-culture references) have a distinctly silly side. Toovey's currently sporting some fairly lustrous locks of his own, so Warner gets to be the one to demonstrate the perm that the murder case hinges on. And most memorably, Elle and Paulette's lapdogs are now played by ensemble members in dog costumes; their owners treat them perfectly normally, but in a bit of a running gag the other characters are creeped out by the weirdly over-sexualised pups.
This is really just a joyous show to kick off the summer with that kept a grin on my face from start to finish. Legally Blonde is a gently empowering story not just about not judging a book by its cover, but also about the way money has taken control of the legal system - Elle may not be an idiot but it's still a big revelation to her the moment she realises lawyers can actually do good. Stripping the story of its Abercrombie & Fitch image has made it that little bit more empowering, and if anything added a new twinkle to its eye.
Legally Blonde by Laurence O'Keefe, Nell Benjamin and Heather Hach, based on the novel by Amanda Brown and the film by Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith and Robert Luketic, is booking until the 2nd of July at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.
Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval
Photo credit: Pamela Raith.
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