Review Roundup: FUNNY GIRL, Starring Sheridan Smith, Opens in London- UPDATED!

FUNNY GIRL returns to the London stage for the first time since its 1966 premiere in a sold-out run, led by Olivier and BAFTA award-winning actress Sheridan Smith as 'Fanny Brice'. The multi award-winning Michael Mayer directs the production, which opened earlier this month at Menier Chocolate Factory before a West End transfer.

Joining Smith as Fanny Brice are Valda Aviks (Mrs O'Malley), Natasha J Barnes (Emma/Mrs Meeker), Darius Campbell (Nick), Marilyn Cutts (Mrs Brice), Maurice Lane (Mr Keeney), Bruce Montague (Ziegfeld), Joel Montague (Eddie), and Gay Soper (Mrs Strakosh).

With music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by Isobel Lennart, the Broadway smash which skyrocketed Barbra Streisand to stardom, FUNNY GIRL is revived with Smith playing Fanny Brice, who rose from the Lower East Side of New York to become one of Broadway's biggest stars under producer Florenz Ziegfield. While she was cheered onstage as a great comedienne, offstage she faced a doomed relationship with the man she loved.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: A reigning sweetheart of British theater and television...Ms. Smith is an actress of remarkable facility, versatility and charm. All these assets are deployed so eagerly in "Funny Girl" that you can't help wishing that she were more comfortably wedded to her character. It's impossible not to like Ms. Smith as Fanny; it is equally difficult to believe her...Ms. Smith is, no doubt, aware of the stamp with which Ms. Streisand embossed these songs. And there's not a single Streisandesque intonation in her Fanny Brice. As she embodies Fanny's rise from a klutzy dreamer in Brooklyn to a Ziegfeld brand name, she often substitutes a wistful, hopeful reediness for the all-conquering brass with which Ms. Streisand endowed the role. She performs "People," the show's best-known number, with a melting delicacy that makes it utterly her own. But a melting Fanny Brice gives "Funny Girl" a soft center, and the production as a whole acquires a soggy sentimentality that reveals the show's age.

Matt Wolf, The New York Times: What Ms. Smith possesses in marquee-worthy lights is a ready likability, as well as an ability to connect with audiences that cannot be taught in theater school. Playing Brice, the New York-born singer-comedienne who helped define American showbiz in the first half of the 20th century, Ms. Smith lets her own, very different star power push thoughts of Ms. Streisand to the side. Ms. Smith may not deliver the sustained money notes that put the role's originator on the map, but Ms. Streisand surely never mined so much sweetness and pure emotion from the part.

Paul Vale, The Stage: Casting Smith is not simply smart business sense, though, as The Legally Blonde and Cilla star is an instinctive comedy actor with the sensitivity and emotional range to pull off the story of this feted comedienne with the tragic private life. To a greater extent, Smith succeeds, but it takes a gargantuan effort to eliminate Streisand's stamp on the role or the problems with the book, despite Harvey Fierstein's helpful revisions. Smith's Brice is unquestionably funny...opposite the tirelessly handsome Darius Campbell as the dignified yet still hopelessly under-written Nick Arnstein. Smith too captures Brice's gritty determination...but beyond the first act there is little to engage us musically and dramatically the show loses steam...

Quentin Letts, The Daily Mail: Sheridan Smith has such scrumptious stage presence. She can make the right corner of her mouth quiver, the tiniest inward dent suggesting naughty mirth. In a small space like London's fringey Menier theatre the audience can relish every tic and twitch...Can our Sheridan sing? Up to a point, though it is not the greatest of voices. But she more than compensates for any musical shortcomings with her acting, so that the show's best-known song, People, becomes something inward-looking and rueful rather than some belted-out torch song...Darius Campbell is well cast as Fanny's hunky but hopeless husband, so good-looking beside his froggy little wife. They make a great pair...The staging could be more adventurous but it tells the story efficiently.

Dominic Cavendish, Telegraph: Smith has impeccable sense of comic timing; she also has an impressive grasp of musical phrasing. She brings an infectious aura of delight to the early hymn to self I'm the Greatest Star, sets tears in her eyes as she sounds the lonely pathos of People, and raises the roof as high as the nearby Shard for the act one closer Don't Rain on My Parade.

Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard: Michael Mayer's buoyant production seems to have been put together with a West End transfer in mind. On the Menier Chocolate Factory's modest stage, some of Lynne Page's bold choreography and Michael Pavelka's handsome designs look cramped. Bob Merrill's lyrics are at times witty, but they can also feel laboured. And while Jule Styne's score contains several knockout songs, it isn't as strong as the one he wrote for his earlier hit Gypsy. Yet even if the musical itself doesn't strike me as a classic, Smith understands how to sell every number she's involved in. There's nothing brassy or desperate about the way she does this. It's a piercingly truthful performance - sometimes gutsy, sometimes anxious, and always a delight.

Michael Billington, Guardian: Fortunately, Smith is a constant joy to watch. Fanny claimed "I've got 36 expressions" and Smith uses just as many to convey the heroine's irrepressible spirit. Noting, on first meeting Nick, that he has paint on his nails, she does a derisive "Huh!" that conveys hilarious doubts about his virility. Smith is also good at delivering snappy Mae West one-liners so that when Nick reveals he breeds horses she retorts: "What's the matter? They can't do it themselves?" But Smith, as well as possessing the long upper lip of the natural comic, never lets you forget that Fanny has the social gaucherie of the workaholic: in a very funny diner à deux scene, she is all flailing limbs as she attempts to avoid instant seduction.

Paul Taylor, Independent: If the leading lady could bring out a bit more the abrasive, self-involved side of Fanny, our cup would runneth over. The transfer to the Savoy is a fast-selling fait accompli. Broadway after that? Surely audiences anywhere would want the sun to shine on Sheridan's Parade.

Michael Coveney, Whatsonstage: Smith's performance, though, is an unqualified success. She does all the quick-fire cross-eyed goofiness of Fanny to perfection and, like all great comediennes, can melt your heart in a second. And she's paced and tailored her vocal powers to the size of the theatre and the ascending glories of her three first act belters: "I'm the Greatest Star," "People" (the take-home hit, but twice as good a number when heard in dramatic context) and "Don't Rain on My Parade."

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: Smith is not Streisand: she is clearly not New York Jewish, and she's less camply fabulous than Babs was. But if her stock in trade is a sort of irrepressible sweetness then she infuses Brice with that in a way that makes the part her own: yes, her Fanny (ahem) is brimming with self-belief, but she also comes across as whole-heartedly, giddily in love with the stage and performance in a way that her tougher predecessor didn't. Watching her from a couple of metres away really is astonishing: there is feeling and nuance, humour and worth and pain in every beat, every syllable, and she delivers Jule Styne and Bob Merrill's wordy songs with effortless fervour, like they're being plucked straight from her consciousness.

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

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