Review Roundup: BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM Opens in the West End

The new British musical Bend It Like Beckham opens tonight 24 June 2015.

Natalie Dew plays football crazy Jess with Lauren Samuels as Jules, a player with the Harriers, a local women's football team, andJamie Campbell Bower as their coach Joe. Sophie-Louise Dann plays the role of Paula with Jamal Andréas as Jess' good friend Tony. Preeya Kalidas plays Pinky, Jess' sister, with Tony Jayawardena and Natasha Jayetileke as her parents, Mr and Mrs Bhamra.

Directed by Gurinder Chadha, with original music by Howard Goodall and lyrics by Charles Hart, Bend It Like Beckham has a new book by Paul Mayeda Berges and Gurinder Chadha; choreography and musical staging by Aletta Collins; set design by Miriam Buether; costume design by Katrina Lindsay; lighting design by Neil Austin; sound design by Richard Brooker; musical direction byNigel Lilley and orchestrations by Howard Goodall and Kuljit Bhamra.

Jess needs extra time. She is facing the most important decision of her life: live up to family expectations of university, career and marriage, or follow in the footsteps of her hero David Beckham.

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

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: I was rubbish at football at school, have little interest in the beautiful game, and shamefully know next to nothing about women's footie...Why am I absolutely smitten, then, with this new musical adaptation of the hit 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham, which puts the issue of women's football centre-stage and has shot past my defences leaving me in a state of gobsmacked admiration?...All that's required is to watch what unfolds with an open mind and prepare to be transported and uplifted in a way that few British musicals manage to achieve...it's what's going on around Natalie Dew's highly personable, gutsily determined Jess that lifts the show into a league of its own...The design abounds with colour and diversity, various nifty tricks are employed to convey the footballing action...But it's as a team effort and a broad-brush portrait of who we are all that the piece scores its major triumph; the fusion of contrasting influences reaches its perfect fever-pitch in the finale, combining the spectacle of whirling saris and traditional wedding-guest dancing with the blur of footballing bodies in motion in one spellbinding East meets West whole -- melting-pot Britain on one irresistible plate.

Michael Billington, The Guardian: Chadha's production, Aletta Collins's choreography and Neil Austin's lighting between them neatly overcome the problem of putting football on stage: a strong female ensemble shows deft ball control and, whenever Jess takes a penalty, the crucial leather is turned into a soaring circle of light. Even if Charles Hart's lyrics...are no more than serviceable, Howard Goodall's score is delightfully eclectic. Goodall uses Punjabi rhythms to great effect in the wedding celebrations and the scenes set in Southall market, while deploying his skill at writing big choral numbers in the first-act finale, Just a Game. But the show's festive gaiety and liberal spirit also become a way of masking the big issues: rigid parental opposition to Jess's ambitions melt away as quickly as the snobbery of a Sikh family who don't want their son to marry Jess's lower-middle-class sister. As long as you accept it as a wish-fulfilling fairytale that scores more heavily after half time, the show is perfectly enjoyable.

Paul Taylor, The Independent: This is the most irresistibly joyous musical-theatre make-over of a much-loved movie since Billy Elliot. It does more for genuine Girl Power in the span of an evening than an eternity of Viva Forever! (the short-lived Spice Girls juke-box venture) could have achieved. And how rare and refreshing in this particular genre to find young characters who aspire to something different from breaking into show business. Another reason to welcome the piece in which Gurinder Chadha...has masterminded a version that reinvents rather than recycles the material. Natalie Dew is wonderfully winning and pure-voiced as Jess...Howard Goodall's gorgeous score, which he has co-orchestrated with Bhangra maestro Kuljit Bhamra, ranges from an exquisite traditional pre-wedding lament for the loss of a daughter (hauntingly sung by Rekha Sawney) to mainstream musical-theatre fare where you can still hear Indian inflections.

Henry Hitchings, London Evening Standard: This is a joyous feelgood show. A musical version of the hit 2002 film, it's a hymn to Girl Power and the vitality of multicultural London. And you don't need to have seen the movie, or even be keen on football, to appreciate its warmth and freshness...Natalie Dew brings exactly the right mix of vulnerability and gutsy commitment to Jess...Director Gurinder Chadha...has crafted a production that bursts with exuberance. Howard Goodall's score is irresistibly romantic -- sometimes poppy and sometimes bubbling with Bollywood verve, but also laced with melancholy -- and Charles Hart's lyrics combine wit and an appealing frankness...there's a rich humour throughout, and it's impossible not to get swept along by Jess's fairytale.

Quentin Letts, The Daily Mail: Britain's newest musical -- and yes, how wonderfully, life-affirmingly, 21st century British it is -- turns out to be like the best sort of FA cup match: end-to-end entertainment, full of feisty shimmers and heart- stopping melodrama...Here is a good old tussle between West and East, family and friends, old and new. Throw in some ace music -- richly orchestrated, hummable tunes -- by Howard Goodall and witty lyrics by Charles Hart. Natalie Dew is excellent as Jess, the slightly plain, possibly butch younger sister of Pinky (Preeya Kalidas)...Okay, it is all more than a touch soupy. The plot may never win trophies for sophistication. The stage may at times become as crowded as the home team's goalmouth at Hereford United (RIP, alas). But the sheer fun of it is irresistible and it can legitimately claim to have a social message about the importance of minorities assimilating and allowing their young to find their own paths in modern Britain.

Mark Shenton, The Stage: Just as no one bends a football quite like David Beckham...so no British-originated new show bends the musical in such a vivaciously fresh and welcome new direction as Bend It Like Beckham...Bend It Like Beckham is a much louder explosion of colour, community and creativity, shot through with exhilarating energy and genuine heart. It's a joyous, gorgeous portrait of the predominantly Asian west London community of Southall, beautifully introduced in the show's opening number UB2...In a sense, it is the Billy Elliot story rewritten, swapping ballet for football, and providing just as keen a movement motif for choreographer Aletta Collins in which to ground the show so fluidly....Instead of a jukebox collection of pop hits and Asian themes that underscored the film, the show is exhilaratingly set to a new score by composer Howard Goodall and lyricist Charles Hart...[Goodall] moves into a new and far more commercial dimension with a series of instantly memorable pop tunes folded within an Asian-influenced carpet of sound and his own signature fusion of competing thematic lines. It is, to borrow the title of the show's second-act opener, glorious.

Michael Coveney, WhatsOnStage: The musical version of Gurinder Chadha's delightful 2002 movie sticks with the original question, not surprisingly, as she herself has written (with Paul Mayeda Berges) and directed the show, with a vibrant, lyrical, irresistible set of songs by Howard Goodall (music) and Charles Hart (lyrics)...The somewhat cosy culture clash between the Punjabi Sikhs and the white Brits gains another dimension in Goodall's music, which decorates the lyrical and ensemble numbers with Asian musical curlicues and goes for flat-out Bollywood exuberance in the social choruses, cleverly combining plot and the skilful boomerang shot - as the ball flies round the auditorium - in "First Touch" and "Bend It". Hart's lyrics are literate, witty and sly, sometimes too over-dense for complete audibility, but very good at conveying honest emotion...Above all, the show has charm - to complain of a soft centre would be to foreswear strawberry creams; ie, stupid.

Terry Eastham, LondonTheatre1.com: What I can say is that "Bend It Like Beckham" is a spectacular musical, with all of the elements you would expect in a West End production like this. The set by Miriam Buether is really wonderful...Gurinder Chadha...directs the show and is really well served by a wonderfully enthusiastic cast who commit body and soul to the show...Katrina Lindsay's costumes -- particularly during the weeding -- are truly beautiful to behold as they reflect the lighting and an an impressive shimmering element to Aletta Collins's choreography. Whilst the story itself is, at its most basic level, a simple story of youth growing and finding its place in the world while the older generation do everything in their power to protect their offspring from the reality of the world they know. However, in with this basic premise are the cultural clashes that can be experienced by second and third generation Indians...The music was used to reflect the differences in culture and, on the whole worked exceptionally well.

Matt Trueman, Variety: If Gurinder Chadha's Brit flick "Bend It Like Beckham," which gave the world one Keira Knightley, seems an odd choice for a musical adaptation, it actually works a lot better on stage than on screen. With composer Howard Goodall and lyricist Charles Hart's chipper songs finding time to dwell on ideas, this slight sporting success story blossoms into something much more considered: a sympathetic portrait of adolescence, a hearty celebration of multiculturalism and a big fat feminist hell-yeah. All that plus the feel-good factor of a World Cup win. It's what you wish the West End were like all the year round.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: The biggest problem is the songs: composer Howard Goodall is revered for his great skill and subtlety, but his finishing is lousy: the man just doesn't do catchy. Though there are some beautifully dreamy Indian flourishes, Goodall's meandering ditties set the tone for a first half content to sit back and kick the story of 18-year-old, football-mad West London Sikh Jess (Natalie Dew) around the pitch. But that's not to say that writer-director Gurinder Chadha...doesn't play a blinder. Even when it feels like Jess's fairytale rise through the ranks of the local women's team Hounslow Harriers is taking a while to get going, 'Bend It Like Beckham' is relentlessly likeable...'Bend It Like Beckham' is a fond celebration of multicultural Britain that feels quietly radical after an election where multiculturalism and immigration have come in for so much stick (and it's refreshing to see a West End musical not just about white folk).

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Photo Credit: Ellie Kurttz

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