Likable, but never quite lovable and huggable, Nikolai Foster’s staging of the musical version of the 2001 movie about Elle Woods – the ditzy but bright fashion-marketing student who is dumped by her preppie boyfriend but gains a place at Harvard Law School – is efficiently drilled and offers a reasonably entertaining night out. But despite the blushing excesses of a decidedly tacky and cheap-looking design, it never quite leaves you in the pink or going OMG.
X-Factor finalist Lucie Jones, was always going to have a hard job banishing the memories of the effervescent Sheridan Smith in the role of Elle, the blonde who discovers her brain but never lets her fashion sense desert her. If the show has a message, it’s that smart girls always look smart. For all its talk of sisterhood and women sticking together, this was never a piece that genuinely struck a blow for feminism.
But in a climate where even teenagers are using the F-word, its “get your man, but make sure it’s the right man” mantra now looks very dated indeed, as if hailing from the 1950s, not 15 years ago.
Of course, it can be enjoyed simply for the fizz and fluff, and Foster’s revival goes all out for both in a production that bubbles along nicely.
Like Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin’s music and lyrics and Nick Winston’s choreography, it’s always very pleasant, but not quite distinctive enough to get you excited. The sound is sometimes as shrill as Elle’s sorority friends.
Tupele Dorgu offers good comic value as Elle’s beauty-parlour friend Paulette, and Ian Kelsey delivers as slimeball legal shark Professor Callahan.
Jones brings a winning energy to the role of Elle, a modern-day fairytale princess who overcomes adversity (an over-fondness for shocking pink, not poverty) to find her own prince and her happily every after.
- At the Curve, Leicester, until 14 May. Box office: 0116-242 3595.
