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.

Theatre review: Young Frankenstein

Mel Brooks' musical adaptation of his own classic film The Producers was a Broadway and West End smash hit, so it was no surprise that the same creative team would try to follow it up. But giving Young Frankenstein the same treatment resulted in an overblown flop, which is why it's taken a decade to cross the Atlantic. But in that time Brooks has continued to work on it, and although I don't have anything to compare it to the version that director/choreographer Susan Stroman has brought to London is, although problematic, hugely entertaining and crowd-pleasing. If one of the criticisms of the 2007 production was that it was too much of a big-budget juggernaut, that's been amended: Although there's a large cast with a vast amount of costume changes (designed by William Ivey Long,) Beowulf Boritt's set tends for a more old-fashioned look with curtain backdrops, and the whole show has a music-hall feel.

Theatre review: The Scottsboro Boys

One of the last Kander and Ebb musicals gets its UK premiere at the Young Vic, with Broadway legend Susan Stroman reprising her role as director and choreographer (and bringing some of the original cast with her.) The people behind a much-loved musical charting the rise of the Nazis aren't afraid of a difficult subject and so The Scottsboro Boys unearths an unpleasant chapter in America's checkered civil rights history. Nine young black men passing through Scottsboro, Alabama on the train, end up spending much of the 1930s behind bars when, seemingly out of nowhere, they find themselves accused of the rape of two white women. Pressure from the North and funds from the Communist party result in countless retrials but the total lack of evidence, and even one of their accusers confessing that her testimony was made up, don't stop jury after jury finding them guilty.