HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

★★★★

“Nothing seems out of place in Dominic Cooke’s staging of this revival”

By interval, while slowly making my way through the bottleneck towards the bar, I’m feeling a bit like the child from ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ folk tale. Only the joke is on me, apparently, rather than the other way round. It takes the second act to make me realise this, and my puzzled expression turns to one of realisation, all the while a smile reluctantly spreading across my face. The belated appreciation is inadvertently symptomatic of a musical that is, after all, fundamentally about second chances.

You have to ignore the flimsy plot to get to its heart. On the surface the story follows the celebrated matchmaker, Dolly Levi, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly half-millionaire Horace Vandergelder. It soon becomes clear, though, that Dolly intends to marry Horace herself. We think it’s all about the money, but as the twists unravel, we discover the true threads of the tale. Love is in the air, ultimately, conquering feelings of grief and bereavement as it sweeps through the auditorium in waves of feelgood farce. In the title role, Imelda Staunton gives a fantastically understated performance as she slowly lets go of her late husband’s ghost to find her way back to where she belongs.

Based on Thornton Wilder’s 1930s ‘The Matchmaker’, it premiered in 1963; so there is always the danger that today’s audiences will find it outdated and out of style. Yet it conveys a bygone age that we are willing to be transported back to. Escapism is the key. Rae Smith’s sumptuous sets mix turn of the century realism with animated backdrops; rickety trolleybuses and sandstone buildings with blue skies – into which, at one point, a full-size steam train billows out clouds of steam. Smith’s costumes match the opulence of the production, particularly during the signature scene in which Dolly descends the famous staircase of the Harmonia Gardens restaurant. The title number of ‘Hello Dolly’ builds slowly towards its ovation-grabbing finale. Dancing waiters and chefs epitomise Bill Deamer’s extravagant and flawless choreography. Nothing seems out of place in Dominic Cooke’s staging of this revival, except for a few lines of Michael Stewart’s book. Yet the execution is faultless, and Jerry Herman’s music and lyrics are given full flight, buoyed up by the twenty strong orchestra down in the pit.

Staunton, to her credit, never steals the show in what is pretty much an ensemble piece (that also boasts one of the largest ensembles in London – it has more swings than a holiday camp playground). Andy Nyman’s Horace Vandergelder is a gently mocking Scrooge, extending his derision to himself as much as anyone else. His rebellious employees, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker (respectively Harry Hepple and the underused Tyrone Huntley) make a fine comedy double act that borders on cliché but thankfully just stops short. The other star turn comes courtesy of Jenna Russell’s Irene Molloy, the milliner who craves to swap her hat shop for a love nest yet is more than twice shy having been bitten by grief too many times.

The songs are not so much old fashioned as old school. Refreshingly nostalgic and timeless. Russell delivers one of the highlights; ‘Ribbons Down My Back’ with an aching hunger while some of the other rousing numbers fill us with joy. Staunton, of course, makes ‘Hello Dolly’ (the song and the show) her own, betraying a unique sense of self-doubt within her layered character. She likes to be in control of everybody’s lives, including her own, but her femininity is never victim to her feminism. There is strength and vulnerability. But also a glorious sense of fun. “It’s no use arguing – I have made up your mind” Dolly says to the redemptive Vandergelder.

There is no arguing with the success of this show either, or the ovation it received. Admittedly the first act drifts a bit, but by curtain call it is well and truly ‘back where it belongs’.

HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

Reviewed on 18th July 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

More reviews from Jonathan:

CELEBRATING LIONEL BART | ★★★ | JW3 | July 2024

NEXT TO NORMAL | ★★★★★ | Wyndham’s Theatre | June 2024

THE MARILYN CONSPIRACY | ★★★★ | Park Theatre | June 2024

KISS ME, KATE | ★★★★ | Barbican | June 2024

THREE MEN IN A BOAT | ★★★ | The Mill at Sonning | June 2024

GIFFORDS CIRCUS – AVALON | ★★★★ | Chiswick House & Gardens | June 2024

MARIE CURIE | ★★★ | Charing Cross Theatre | June 2024

CLOSER TO HEAVEN | ★★★★ | The Turbine Theatre | June 2024

THE BLEEDING TREE | ★★★★ | Southwark Playhouse Borough | June 2024

FUN AT THE BEACH ROMP-BOMP-A-LOMP!! | ★★★ | Southwark Playhouse Borough | May 2024

HELLO, DOLLY!

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★★★

“a well-oiled piece of theatrical machinery, which can be trusted to generate the audience reaction it was created to produce”

Ghost Stories is something of a theatrical phenomenon. Premiering at the Liverpool Playhouse in 2010, it has since toured extensively in the UK and across the globe, and was also, in 2017, turned into a film. Unusually, the play’s publicity campaign does not employ production shots, and critics and audience alike are asked to ‘keep the secrets of Ghost Stories‘, in order to ensure that new audiences are alive to the show’s surprises. As a publicity tactic, this can only be admired, and it has clearly played a big part in this production’s success. The pre-show buzz had a very particular energy in Brighton last night, and it was clear that there were a lot of horror fans in the audience. As the play’s chief protagonist states in the play’s opening: for the most part, people come to this kind of show to play a game with fear. It is a very particular type of sensory titillation. On this front, it seemed the show did not disappoint. There were certainly gasps and screams aplenty throughout, and they pretty much happened on cue, in terms of the theatrical techniques employed to produce them.

Broadly speaking, this is a production that operates on two levels – the naturalistic, and that of heightened horror. If each of these speak to you equally, you are in for a treat; if, like this reviewer, you favour one mode significantly over the other, the likelihood is that you will find the show tonally uneven and ultimately somewhat frustrating. There is some very good acting to be seen here – Joshua Higgott as Professor Goodman and Paul Hawkyard as Tony Matthews give particularly detailed performances, and there is strong work too from Richard Sutton – and writers Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman have come up with a neat narrative structure that works effectively. The design team too – Jon Bausor, James Farncombe (Lighting) and Nick Manning (Sound) – have created a slick and atmospheric series of worlds within a world. Scott Penrose’s special effects are a massive part of the show, but again, are a potentially divisive element. To this reviewer, there were elements that smacked rather too much of a fairground ghost train, and took away from the real fear generated by the power of the acting and the narrative itself, but plenty of audience members seemed to have their experience enhanced by these moments.

In essence, Ghost Stories is a well-oiled piece of theatrical machinery, which can be trusted to generate the audience reaction it was created to produce. There are shocks aplenty, but ultimately it is a formulaic genre piece – albeit quite a clever one – and therefore actually very unsurprising.

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

★★★★

“Nothing seems out of place in Dominic Cooke’s staging of this revival”

HELLO, DOLLY! at the London Palladium

Reviewed on 18th July 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

More reviews from Jonathan:

HELLO, DOLLY!

HELLO, DOLLY!

Theatre Royal Brighton

Reviewed – 11th February 2020

★★★

“a well-oiled piece of theatrical machinery, which can be trusted to generate the audience reaction it was created to produce”

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Ghost Stories

Theatre Royal Brighton until 15th February then UK tour continues

Previously reviewed at this venue: