BWW Reviews: WHITE CHRISTMAS Brings Holiday Cheer to Grand Canal Theatre

If you're looking for a delectable holiday treat – and the rare one that won't pile on the pounds – "Irving Berlin's White Christmas", now playing at Dublin's Grand Canal Theatre, may be just the thing.

Based on the classic 1954 film of the same name, "White Christmas" tells the tale of Bob Wallace (AlEd Jones) and Phil Davis (Adam Cooper), a song-and-dance duo who served together in the US Army during WWII.  The prospect of romance with singing sisters Betty and Judy Haynes (Amy Ellen Richardson and Louise Bowden) soon leads Wallace and Davis to the Northern US state of Vermont, where they unexpectedly encounter their former army boss, General Henry Waverly (Ken Farrington).  Now working as an innkeeper, the General has landed in financial trouble...the kind that can only be cured by a charitable musical extravaganza staged in the barn out back.  But will the lovers overcome a series of misunderstandings - not to mention an unseasonable heat wave - as Christmas fast approaches? 

Tunes like "Counting My Blessings", "The Best Things Happen When You're Dancing", and of course the eponymous "White Christmas", are likely to be familiar to audiences; and with a cast full of accomplished triple-threats such numbers form the heart and soul of this production.  In fact, the plot is perhaps the least developed aspect of "White Christmas", simply because it doesn't need to be.  The book, adapted by David Ives and Paul Blake, feels scaled back from the film screenplay, which allows for the inclusion of additional songs from composer Irving Berlin's hefty musical canon (such as "Blue Skies" and the toe-tapping "I Love a Piano").  Often, when similar musicals are cobbled together from a songwriter's collective body of work, the result can seem slipshod and the plot weighed down by songs which have to be manipulated to fit in.  Happily, "White Christmas" mostly avoids such traps.  The added showpieces (Wallace and Davis performing on the Ed Sullivan Show, for instance) may be there purely for entertainment value, rather than to further the plot, but they are never gratuitous. 

Jones's warm tenor voice is spot-on in the role Bing Crosby made famous, while Richardson and the Irish-born Bowden make appealing leading ladies, though their parts are less fleshed-out than those of the men.  But it is the dancing that truly makes this performance sparkle, and that is largely due to Adam Cooper, who commands a stage like few others.  Though the entire ensemble deserves kudos for hoofing it to Randy Skinner's athletic choreography, Cooper's presence is so striking that it's hard to watch anyone dance alongside him.  The former Royal Ballet principal dancer who gained notoriety for his leading role in "Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake" has built up an impressive musical theatre repertoire in recent years, taking on such roles as Sky Masterson in "Guys and Dolls" and Don Lockwood in "Singin' in the Rain".  In "White Christmas" he creates stunning lines in everything from tap to the waltz.  It truly is a joy to watch a dancer who is both technically flawless and also so clearly enjoying his job. 

All told, there is nothing revolutionary or boundary-pushing in this production of "White Christmas", just the perfect dose of Christmas cheer and a celebration of that most magical thing of all: show business.

The UK tour of "White Christmas" plays Dublin's Grand Canal Theatre through 17^th December.

 

 

 

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