Review: BURLESQUE, King's Theatre

Burlesque is a musical by Steve Antin based on the 2010 film of the same name. It originally opened in Manchester in 2024 before a hugely successful run at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow.

Since its original run, it has had a shaky West End run, with drastic changes to the creative team. It’s back for a big UK tour, but it hasn’t been without its problems. The London run that was meant to kick off the tour was cancelled outright, and the four cities before Glasgow all had their own issues, and we did not escape unscathed last night. The show went up 25 minutes late with apologies for the delay, and then there was a 20-minute show stop during Act 2. The curtain came down an hour after the original advertised run time, with several audience members having to leave early.

It’s a different story to the film, Ali (Gracie O’Brien) is from a small town and, having grown up in foster care, is heading for the bright lights of New York City to find her birth mother. Tess (Faye Brooks) runs a burlesque club that is in great financial difficulty, and she has no time for small talk with this country girl who has just arrived and demands her attention. Due to a technical difficulty one night in the club, they have no backing track so Ali steps in to sing live and blows Tess away. It’s not a bad plot, but its baffling as to why it is so different from the original film and the clunky script makes a lot of the onstage interactions awkward and unnatural. 

Ryan Carter does the best he can with what he’s given as Sean, who works in the club. He has some iconic lines from the film but they don’t seem to land as well as they should as there’s too much else going on in the script. There are some brilliant dance numbers, but there also are some vaudeville variety scenes that feel out of place, and it's frustrating when placed alongside moments that show what this cast are capable of. Davide Fienauri plays Vince, Tess’ ex-husband with a stake in the company and a dastardly plan to close the club. Again, this feels out of place in the show and he comes across as a sort of panto villain. 

The original Glasgow run was a glittering whirlwind that deserved every one of its five stars but this new version has inexplicably added eleven songs, which takes the total list up to thirty-four tracks. The best songs are the ones you know such as “Express” and “Show Me How You Burlesque” with Brookes also getting her big moment with “You Haven’t Seen The Last Of Me”. 

The pacing of this show definitely suffered from the show stop, despite how hard the cast are working. There are some truly exceptional vocals in this show, but the songs are mostly filler, which is odd considering how many there are and how much plot there is to get through. There are too many characters that are introduced but then don’t get enough stage time for there to be much meaningful connection with them.

Burlesque is citing technical problems for the repeated show stops in other cities, and at times it seems to be the lighting that really suffers. It’s hard to tell if this was intentional, but on a few occasions the audience were fully illuminated while the dancers onstage were in darkness.

It’s a shame to see a show that had so much potential a couple of years ago descend into chaos. It’s an extremely talented and hard-working cast but Burlesque currently feels like a work in progress.

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