Palace Theatre, Manchester – until 25 November 2017. Reviewed by Marcus Richardson
5*****
Cilla Black was an iconic woman who most of us know either from TV or her music career, died suddenly from a fall two years ago. The musical Cilla is a homage to her life and the start of her career. We see young Cilla just an average scouse girl in the 1960s, and we follow her rise to stardom. The musical included songs by her and the Beatles who she had close connections with for a long time.
I cannot put into words how good Cilla was, we are given the best vocals you will ever hear from all the cast, but Kara Lily Hayworth (Cilla) played the role with so much perfection and finesse, I’m sure Cilla would be pleased, with how she sang and just captured her iconic character that the nation loved. We see how she grew up in Liverpool listening to the ‘Big Three’ and then started performing with them, then we are introduced to her friend Richard who is better known as Ringo. We see her relationship with her partner Bobby, played superbly by Carl Au. They share the song ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’ together in the second act which took the whole audience breaths away. How can anyone talk about Cilla with mentioning Brian Epstein, one of the most famous managers in the world, played by Andrew Lancel – who knows the character pretty well as he played the man himself in the production of ‘Epstein- The Man Who Made The Beatles’. Needless to say he gave the role a stellar performance capturing his complex character and relationship with Cilla Black
The staging and costumes captured the 1960s so well, with everything having a seamless finish, the scene changes took no more that 5 seconds and with the detail that some scenes had I was impressed, as at some points there was a whole array of furniture. The costumes mirror the decade and looked stunning on stage.
I could force anyone to see a show at this moment in time it would be to see this show, it is an instant classic with the lovable characters and iconic songs that you will be singing along to, the songs like ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ and ‘You’re My World’. The musical is done to a standard that makes it seems like you aren’t even watching a show with the amount of precision from both the cast and crew.