Sheffield Lyceum – until 15 April 2023
Reviewed by Lottie Davis-Browne
4****
Having been lucky enough to see the 2nd U.K. tour (2016) with a fabulous cast with Alexandra Burke and Jon Robyns as Police Officer “Sweaty” Eddie, I praised the theatre Gods when I heard this was touring again. Whilst it’s not up there in my top five (or even top ten – granted I’ve seen easily over 100 different West End and touring musicals over several decades), it certainly has the “feel good factor” and gets you dancing along by the end of the show.
My excitement for this heavenly revival only grew further with casting announcements of Sandra Marvin in the title role of Deloris Van Cartier, having seen Marvin in several productions including Waitress, Show Boat, City of Angel’s and Hairspray, I knew she’d bring the house down in this role – she oozes all the confidence of the singer-turned-Nun Deloris and has a belting voice to boot. Having grown up watching “Birds of a Feather” and seeing Lesley Joseph as the cold hearted Miss Hannigan in Annie, I knew this was the perfect pairing.
Unfortunately my excitement was short lived when at the Press Night I learnt (not until the show had started and Deloris makes her entrance) that Marvin wasn’t on this evening. Her understudy (for which she has two – Tanya Edwards and Gabrielle Davina Smith – tonight’s being the latter) was taking the lead for this performance, which don’t get me wrong I’ve seen some utterly outstanding understudies both on tour and the West End, some I’ve even ended up loving in the role more than their counter part (having gone back another day and seeing the lead in action), so I tried not to feel too disappointed.
Following closely the storyline of the film 1992 of the same name, Sister Act is a musical comedy centred around club/lounge singer Deloris who unknowingly dates the wrong guy who’s involved in a life of crime and witnesses him shoot and kill a man and being put into the last place him and his hitmen will find her – a failing Nunnery on the brink of bankruptcy. From the moment Doloris arrives at the Nunnery, escorted by old classmate “Steady” Eddie (originally Sweaty Eddie in previous productions – not sure why they’ve changed it but if it ain’t broken don’t (cruci)fix it) she clashes with the highly devoted to her faith Mother Superior (Joseph) whilst living under the new identity of Sister Mary Clarence. Used to so much freedom, Mary Clarence finds life in the Habit a major shock to the system to say the least. Life “Here Within These Walls” is certainly going to take some adjusting to. Speaking of which, this duet between Mother Superior and Mary Clarence (backing vocals by the Nuns), it wasn’t understudy Gabrielle’s vocals that we could hear sung with such power from the back of the stalls, but Joseph’s – with Gabrielle’s voice often not quite reaching us at moments of the song when it really needed to – yet Joseph’s powerful vocals hit every part of the auditorium. From the opening number “Take Me To Heaven” followed shortly after with “Fabulous, Baby!”, it was clear that Gabrielle was an understudy and failed to deliver the powerful confident vocals of Van Cartier – and this is where my disappointment for not having Sandra Marvin on tonight really hit home. It seemed nerves had got the better of Gabrielle and sadly this sometimes showed in the big musical numbers – however as the story progressed and she warmed into the lead role, I was soon left eating my own words as Gabrielle came back with a bang in Act 2 and from the first note of “Sunday Morning Fever” to the reprise of “Raise Your Voice” at the end, I’d really grown to love everything about Gabrielle’s performance. She’s got a certain sweet youthful innocence to her, when Goldberg who originated the role in the movie was a more mature confident singer/actress. Whilst Burke was also fairly young as the lead in 2016, she oozes stage confidence with the powerful knockout voice to go with it. I just felt that Gabrielle was often overshadowed by Joseph and Lizzy Bea (who I’ll get to in a moment) and almost felt sorry for her as the lead role because she didn’t quite have the stage presence as some other cast members. All this a side, she really did come into her own as the show went on, I honestly look forward to seeing her in other roles. She is definitely one to watch out for in the future.
Set in the 1970s, the costumes are as 1970s as you can get – the flares, the glitter and disco balls, platforms and crazy moustaches along with some funky choreography – a real highlight of the show was the disco scene with Eddie stripping off in his office into funky 70s getup complete with disco ball and hilarious backup dancers. Clive Rowe (as Eddie Souther) had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand as he shook his booty to 70s disco fever – you felt a strong urge to get up and dance with him. A real show stealing moment!
Speaking of show stealing, laughs a plenty came from trio Pablo (Damian Buhagiar), TJ (Bradley Judge) and Joey (tonight played by Castell Parker in lieu of Tom Hopcroft) – Curtis (the outstanding talent that is Jeremy Secombe who’s portrayal as Sweeney Todd in the musical of the same name at Harrington’s Pie and Mash Shop, still haunts me to this very day! I’ve only to look at him and I get flashbacks!), the three hitman friends of gangster Curtis. Judge in particular is absolutely hilarious as TJ with his high pitched voice that has the audience in hysterics. Secombe as Curtis was of course as awesome as always, as to be expected from him.
But the real star of the show for me was Lizzy Bea as the shy quiet as a mouse singer Sister Mary Roberts who Sister Mary Clarence gives her the confidence to “Raise (her) Your Voice”. Her solo performance of “The Life I Never Lead” was clearly a favourite of not just mine but the entire audience- hitting all the right notes whilst being filled with mixed emotions of a young Nun in training who’s only ever known a strict religious upbringing and wonders if she is making the right decision and missing out on so many different experiences.
It certainly felt great to be back “in the habit” with this noteworthy revival (I won’t speak about the West End revival that was postponing during covid where Goldberg herself was set to revive her role as Deloris. #gutted); I’ve listened to the soundtrack several times since first seeing in 2016 and there’s some fantastic musical numbers on it. Whilst for me it doesn’t have the wow factor of some of the bigger longer running musicals, it’s a nostalgic favourite of mine and definitely worth praying to the theatre gods for a ticket and future revivals.