Adrian Horton
9 / 10
Singing aside - and, as Fanny successfully makes her case for fame in a song called I'm The Greatest Star, singing is most of the point - Michele also handily carried the show's vaudevillian humor and Fanny's transformation from chorus line wannabe to young bride to seasoned star with a combustible marriage. Whereas Feldstein played Fannie as more precocious and naive, even after her marriage to gambler Nicky Arnstein (Ramin Karimloo), Michele's Fanny is more scrappy and sensual; she's a much more convincing partner, emotionally and physically, to Karimloo's suave, older Nicky. Michele's Fanny brims with determination and potent self-delusion - the kind one needs to become a star, the kind that propelled both her character on Glee (who went on to star in a fictional revival of Funny Girl) and Michele's own fraught celebrity. It is, in other words, a very good fit of actor and character, and the type of meta pop culture moment that delivers the thrill of feeling fated.
