BWW Reviews: JERSEY BOYS, The Prince Edward Theatre, March 29 2011

It's not exactly unheard of for people to go autograph hunting during a night out at the theatre, but we're more used to it happening at the stage door after the show. Not so at Tuesday's performance of Jersey Boys: many of the people in the seats surrounding me returned after the interval proudly declaring that they'd spotted S Club 7 in the bar and got them to sign their tickets.

Technically, of course, the members in the bar were only S Club 6, as Jon Lee was on stage, playing the role of Frankie Valli in the evening's show - and a fine job he made of it too. Not only does the part require a phenomenal vocal range, but also the convincing development of Valli from a wide-eyed youngster learning the trade from bandmate Tommy DeVito (an assured performance from Jon Boydon) to a cynical pop idol, as fame, life on the road, and Tommy's ongoing underhanded dealings all take their toll on him. Lee is more than up to both challenges, delivering near-faultless vocals and charting Valli's gradual transformation very effectively - in the closing numbers in particular, he does well to underscore Valli's obvious love of performing with hints of the stress that he's enduring offstage.

Outside of the uniformly impressive performances, the show itself is an impressive theatrical feat - a sort of Rashomon with jazz hands, as each of the Four Seasons share narrating duties, occasionally correcting each other on the specifics of what happened to whom and why. Its pace is to be admired - there's a lot of story to be told here, but the whole production runs on seemingly limitless reserves of energy and never lags for a second. It's not afraid to be playful with its audience either - a particularly memorable moment near the Act One finale switches the audience perspective from arena to backstage and temporarily fills the house with bright light. It's a brave show that's prepared to blind its audience, but in this case, its confidence that we'll want to keep watching no matter how much it stings is not misplaced.

The other audience members around me were clearly having a wonderful time - some, admittedly, perhaps a bit too much, as they chatterEd Loudly about the plot developments or attempted to join in with their own renditions of the horn section from 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You'. But then, when the only real fault you can find with your evening's entertainment is "audience a little overenthusiastic", you know that Jersey Boys is getting just about everything right.

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