Theatre review: Crazy For You

Crazy For You isn't a Madonna jukebox musical, but it is a jukebox musical: Although based on the 1930 show Girl Crazy, Ken Ludwig's book ties together a number of George Gershwin (music) and Ira Gershwin's (lyrics) most popular songs from throughout their career. It's played the West End before, and frankly didn't make enough of an impact on me to revisit it now if Susan Stroman's revival, which she originally directed and choreographed in Chichester, didn't star the criminally talented Charlie Stemp. In fact the publicity for this transfer has largely focused on Stemp's growing profile, the comparisons to Gene Kelly and the fact that he's essentially in a league of his own. God help his understudy, basically. But not tonight, as the main cast are present and correct for the most unironically old-fashioned show in town.

Stemp plays Bobby Child, heir to a banking fortune who just wants to sing and dance. But he also wants to avoid his fiancée Irene (Natalie Kassanga,) so he agrees to do the bank's dirty work and foreclose on a property in Nevada.

But once in the virtual ghost town of Deadrock he discovers the derelict property is a theatre, and determines to save it. This is largely because he's fallen in love at first sight with the owner's daughter Polly (Carly Anderson.) He disguises himself as famed impresario Bela Zangler, and recruits some of his friends from among the chorus girls to help put on a show and save the theatre. Polly, who's taken a dislike to Bobby because of what he represents, falls in love with the fake Zangler, just as the real one (Tom Edden) arrives in town.

This is not the show for anyone who wants bite, subtlety or reinvention. But in playing it so straight down the line as one of the Hollywood Golden Age musicals it harks back to, Stroman’s production is in its own way just as audacious, simply because it has to be so spot-on to work. And Stemp lives up to the increasing hype, taking the lead that the rest of the cast expertly follow. Although Ludwig’s script more than does the job of providing gags and the bones of a story, it is essentially there in service of stringing together a series of huge song and dance numbers – as Jan said at the interval, the sort of spectacle that was reserved for one or two showstopping numbers in last week’s Mrs Doubtfire is essentially every song in this.

The show even seems built for its leads’ strengths, with the majority of the big songs going to Anderson and the most explosive dance sequences going to Stemp. Both make for good romantic comedy leads, but while I’ve seen the latter live up to his reputation as a hoofer with superhuman energy in his previous West End musical outings, here he really leans into the retro element of his appeal by making that same physicality the basis of his comedy as well. There’s a rubber-faced, cartoonish quality that again, isn’t subtle but is utterly winning. The show most obviously plays homage to classic comedy standards in a mirror-acting scene between the two hung-over Zanglers, and Stemp and Edden deliver as good a take on the routine as I’ve ever seen. When you see Stemp stagger around at the top of a perilous staircase, it’s just a question of which possible slapstick technique he’s going to use to get down them, and he doesn’t disappoint (a couple of days ago he posted on Instagram his excitement at getting to meet Lee Evans because he was his childhood comedy hero and… yeah, that tracks.)

The leads’ energy infects the rest of the cast; Stroman’s production leans into the predictability of the story, so when Kassanga’s Irene and Mathew Craig’s Lank are rejected by the leads they immediately move onto a love-hate romance with each other. Rina Fatania and Sam Harrison have some fun scenes as the Fodors, a pair of British tourist guide writers who set up in Lank’s desert saloon demanding fine wines and five-star treatment; they’re a bit like the character equivalent of a non-sequitur, I kept expecting the rug pull where they’re just a couple of American freeloaders in disguise and it never comes, but entertaining enough nonetheless. And there’s no slacking from the ensemble either: Notably, Joshua Nkedilim and Bradley Trevethan’s athletically choreographed comic routines seem like they’re so in sync with each other they've been doing it for years, so I was surprised to see Trevethan was actually understudying tonight.

There’s a lot of attempts, especially with theatre and the economy in general in a shaky state at the moment, at old-fashioned entertainment that aim to make a quick buck with something unchallenging. Crazy For You doesn’t feel like that, largely because so much effort and care has been put into making every second of it look like absolutely no effort has been required at all. It achieves the almost impossible, of giving you the genuine mix of comfort-viewing and thrill of watching a Golden Age Hollywood musical, but without the worry that someone’s going to do a racism any minute.

Crazy For You by Ken Ludwig, Ira Gershwin and George Gershwin, conceived by Ken Ludwig and Mike Ockrent and based on material by Guy Bolton and John McGowan, is booking until the 20th of January at the Gillian Lynne Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.