Review Roundup: SINATRA THE MUSICAL at the Aldwych Theatre

Sinatra The Musical is now officially open at the Aldwych Theatre in London. The production stars Joel Harper-Jackson as Frank Sinatra, Ana Villafañe as the movie goddess Ava Gardner, Phoebe Panaretos as Frank’s first wife, Nancy Sinatra and the Olivier Award-winning Jenna Russell as Frank’s mother, Dolly Sinatra.

Sinatra The Musical, which features over 20 hits including That’s Life, One For My Baby, The Best Is Yet To Come & Come Fly With Me, is running at the Aldwych Theatre until 10 April 2027. See what the critics are saying...

Emma John, The Guardian: Sinatra’s producer daughter Tina, who helped shape the story, wanted her father to be better understood. But a reluctance to embrace too much darkness lends a sense that things just happen to our hero. It’s at odds with the comeback narrative and the stubbornness we’re told he’s inherited from his Italian mother – Jenna Russell, who can steal a scene with just a single line delivered on a telephone.

Marianka Swain, The Telegraph: Thankfully, the terrific performances elevate the material. Joel Harper-Jackson is an effortlessly charismatic, if aptly obnoxious, young Sinatra, and his singing is impressively close to the real thing: soaring musicality, immaculate phrasing and soulful delivery. But it’s the formidable women who really dominate: Phoebe Panaretos’s fiercely uncompromising Nancy, Ana Villafañe’s worldly-wise Ava, Jenna Russell’s ball-busting Italian mamma, and Melissa Nettleford, as Billie Holiday, nailing the smoky torch song One for My Baby.

Patrick Marmion, Daily Mail: Harper-Jackson is so good, he comes close to giving Frankie a credible emotional core, with a show-stopping rendition of That's Life as he laments the agonies of his affair with Ana Villafane's jaw-dropping Gardner.

Andrzej Lukowski, TimeOut: If you really like Frank Sinatra, this is absolutely fine. But it’s so far from exceptional. And for a big West End show with clear Broadway aspirations it should be so much better. The last massive bio-musical was MJ. It had its problems. It also had a canny book by a world-class playwright (Lynn Nottage) and, more to the point, its lead actor Myles Frost embodied all that was electrifying about Michael Jackson as singer and dancer.

Sarah Hemming, Financial Times: Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/. https://www.ft.com/content/4e741d03-3b87-4d9d-8af9-5ba8ab806639?syn-25a6b1a6=1 And what of the man himself? Harper-Jackson is vocally great: he has a sumptuous voice and soaring delivery — close your eyes, and you might imagine he was the real thing — and he suggests something of the charisma and volatility of his character. But he’s hampered by a script that never gets more than skin-deep. Do we get all of him? Unfortunately, not.

Greg Stewart, Theatre Weekly: The audience ultimately warms to this version of Sinatra, due in no small part to a ‘nothing but the best’ performance from Joel Harper-Jackson in the title role. It is an exceptional piece of work: a finely judged, vocally assured turn that captures both the precision and the ease of Sinatra at his peak. His speaking voice and vocals are so closely aligned with the original that, at times, it feels less like interpretation and more like inhabitation. Close your eyes and you could be transported to one of those famed Vegas residencies.

Franco Milazzo, BroadwayWorld: DiPietro has deliberately chosen to illustrate his subject from a palate based on a small but crucial period of his career. By narrowing the musical’s scope to his early years, though, the production finishes well short of the better known chapters of his life, leaving the narrative feeling frustratingly incomplete. Other London musicals about Tina Turner, Chaka Khan and Michael Jackson all paint a broader picture, capturing the complexity of their subjects’ legacies in a way that truly reflects how they lived life their own way. Will DiPietro have regrets over this choice? Maybe a few.

Maddy Mussen, Evening Standard: A lot of money has been spent here, but for what? To furnish a vehicle for the hits, which are duly trotted out, though often jarringly reframed for two mismatched voices. Come Fly With Me becomes a Hollywood shagathon. My Way is repurposed to plumb Frank’s lowest ebb. The mawkish deployment of Nancy With the Laughing Face (about his daughter, not his wife) made me slightly sick in my mouth. New York, New York accompanies the curtain call. These remain, mostly, great songs. But who wants to hear them in a rickety, partial and hagiographic stage musical that whitewashes a complicated and frankly unpleasant individual? Frankly Unpleasant: now that’s the Sinatra musical I might pay to see.

Average Rating: 68.8%