Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham – until Saturday 4th July 2026
Reviewed by Chris Jarvis
5*****
I was delighted to be asked to review the Nottingham performance of The Jersey Boys 20th Anniversary tour. A first for me, it has been seen by more than 30 million people and spent 12 years on Broadway and 9 years in the West End.
This biographical juke-box musical tells the story of four young Italian/American boys from New Jersey some of whom knew each other through childhood and others introduced by fellow musicians and writers. Nick Massi played tonight by Lewis Kennedy, had noticed Frankie Valli’s amazing vocal ability so introduced him to fellow band member Tommy DeVito (Carlo Boumouglbay) and later the famous actor, then musician Joey Pesci (Aiden Carson) introduced keyboard player and song writer Bob Gaudio (Toby Miles) to the group.
The stage is set in the early ‘60’s with these 4 musicians coming together under numerous band names, and variable success finally taking off under the name The Four Seasons – the original members Franki Valli – lead vocalist, with the 3 backing vocalists Tommy DeVito – lead guitar, Nick Massi – lead bassist and Bob Gaudio – keyboard.
As soon as they started playing, we were immediately transported back to the late 50’s/early 60’s with some sensational music, singing and dancing with similarities to African/American music. In fact, you could be forgiven for thinking you were listening to 4 black singers.
It became known as doo-wop – a blend of rock and roll/R&B with rich vocal harmonies, often with nonsense syllables from the backing singers alongside highly choreographed dancing and moves. Luke Baker ‘nailed it’ tonight reaching Frankie Valli’s renowned falsetto notes with apparent ease, as well as the deeper tones in ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ but all vocals were brilliant.
It’s a fascinating and true story that took us on a rollercoaster ride through the highs and lows of the band’s journey to success. We saw power struggles, band members falling out, links with the mob, massive mafia debts accumulated by Tommy DeVito, yet their ‘connection’ and support for each other came across, particularly from Frank Valli.
It’s not just a musical with fantastic songs – they’re there for a reason – to tell the compelling and fascinating true story. I learned a lot while being entertained!
The music is brilliant and it was great to hear all those back-to-back hits from the early sixties – Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like a Man …… that I remember my Mum singing along to!
In fact, I had no idea just how many amazing songs come from this collaboration of band members particularly writer Bob Gaudio and Bob Crewe (Michael Levi), band manager/lyricist, that have been covered by a myriad of well-known artists since.
The acting was amazing and it was hard to imagine how difficult it was for the actors who were miming their instruments while a band of professional musicians played behind the scenes, to make it look so real while singing and dancing the dozens of different coordinated moves.
Frankie Valli now age 92, would be proud of the performance and I’d wholly recommend it.
A standing ovation for the finale showed the audience’s appreciation last night while also giving the opportunity to join in the doo-wop!