Sinatra The Musical West End Reviews

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...

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.

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 so...

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.

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 ...

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.

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 char...

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.

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 capt...

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.

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...

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.

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 ...

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.