Theatre review: Burlesque

I haven't really been following all the gossip about the troubled production of Burlesque, but I did suspect everything might not be going swimmingly early on when Todrick Hall was initially announced as one of the stars, then as the director and choreographer, and finally as one of the co-writers. Given that those things would ideally be worked out in the reverse order, it did give the impression of a temp getting hired to help out on a project for a couple of weeks, then ending up running it a few months later when everyone who actually knows what they're doing quits, why yes I do speak from experience. Also Hall has publicly stated that the show got rushed into the Savoy when it suddenly became available and nobody was prepared for it, so that was a clue as well. Anyway the finished product only really shows signs of its troubled origins when the lights are on and there's people on stage.

The musical adaptation of Steven Antin's 37% Rotten Tomatoes scoring 2010 film by Antin (book,) Christina Aguilera, Hall, Sia, Diane Warren and Jess Folley (music and lyrics) follows Ali (understudy Elly Jay) from Iowa to New York in search of her birth mother.

This is Tess (Orfeh,) who runs a burlesque club originally opened by her own grandmother. The venue is in dire financial straits despite the fact that Tess doesn't pay her staff and expects them to live off tips alone, because for some reason all American culture is mainly dedicated to not only normalising but outright glamorising incredibly toxic working practices. Tess gives Ali a job as a terrible waitress, and has quite a brusque manner so Ali decides not to mention the fact that she once used to live inside her and that's literally the only reason she's turned up in the first place, better wait for it to come out at the most inconvenient moment for the plot.

Plot, needless to say, being quite far down the list of priorities – there’s a romantic interest in Jackson (Paul Jacob French,) the bar manager whose shirt doesn’t do up properly, and a barely-there suggestion of peril from Tess’ ex-husband Vince (George Maguire) teaming up with disgruntled ex-employee Nicki (Asha Parker-Wallace) to rip off the club before it goes under anyway. But it does feel like this is all coming in sudden bursts of exposition because everything has to stop for the next big number. Spectacle is the priority and the show delivers, with the limber ensemble the highlight, and though overlong the first act does provide a lot of fun.

With this being based on a Christina Aguilera project it’s not surprising if the singing style is all about the BIG vocals, with Jay in particular belting and growling, growling and belting, then belting and growling some more. Probably not the first burlesque show to put a big growler centre stage, to be fair. It’s the sort of thing I find impressive if not particularly enjoyable, and gets wearying in the second act – having figured out that there’s not actually been anything much resembling a human emotion up to now, we get ballad after ballad, a sure way to remind the audience of how late it’s getting.

Overall Burlesque isn’t the car crash some people might have feared and others hoped for, but it does betray the fact that it reached the stage hastily. Not just in the cast occasionally colliding with or falling off the furniture, but mostly in the way it feels bloated and overloaded, definitely a few edits short of properly slick. It’s a fun show until it overstays its welcome, and if a lot of songs seem to end with the line “That’s what burlesque is!” it may be because they’ve assumed (correctly) that this might not be entirely obvious from context alone.

Burlesque by Steven Antin, Christina Aguilera, Todrick Hall, Sia, Diane Warren and Jess Folley, based on the film by Steven Antin, is booking until the 6th of September at the Savoy Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith.