Review: Beautiful, The Carole King Musical @ Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Beautiful is….beautiful. The Carole King Musical restores one critic’s faith in touring musical theatre.

📍 Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 TUE 05 APR TO SAT 09 APR 2022
🕖 Evenings 7.30pm | Matinees Wed, Thu & Sat 2:30pm
🕖 Running time (approx.): 2 hours 30 minutes (includes 20 min. interval)
👥 Book: Douglas McGrath
👥 Words and Music: Gerry Goffin & Carole King, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil
👥 Director: Nikolai Foster
💰 From £26.50
🎂 11+
🎭 Audio Description: Fri 08 April 7.30PM
🎭 Touch Tours: Fri 08 April 6.30PM
🎭 BSL – Interpreted – Fri 08 April 7.30PM – Anna Spence

This will be a short review, there’s no need to wrap tough, yet constructive criticism in cotton wool, and no niggling worries that a show’s successes, and failures won’t be adequately conveyed. Quite simply, Beautiful, The Carole King Musical is very good, very good indeed.

Jukebox musicals such as Beautiful, are sometimes viewed as ‘lesser’ than their originally created counterparts, but familiarity and established biography make a fine pair of double-edged swords. Get it right, and an audience might well give all credit to the original artist; get it wrong, and there’s nowhere to hide.

Thankfully, Beautiful gets just about everything right, and whilst Carole King provides most of the notes, she isn’t there to sing it. Neither are The Shirelles, The Drifters, or The Righteous Brothers, nor many of the other immortal stars for whom she composed hits.

Taking on these legendary mantles are a brave cast of multi-talented singers and musicians, led by a quite sensational Molly-Grace Cutler in the title role. Cutler nails the part. Certainly, it’s not the most challenging dramatic role, but her transition from enthusiastic introvert to confident master of her arts is played with charm, and — critically — a reasonable Brooklyn accent. The magic, and it is magic, happens every time she sits at a piano, or steps up to a mic. This isn’t karaoke, this is, “Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be Carole King”, and then delivering 20+ series winning performances inside 130 minutes. When she really lets rip in the closing numbers she, and the cast, transcend tribute, and their rendition of “Beautiful” is a fittingly majestic cover of the well-loved anthem.

Douglas McGrath’s book keeps sings simple, but not simplistic, introducing us to a 17-year-old Carole in time to watch her sell her first song to publisher (and shortly thereafter employer) Donnie Kirshner (Garry Robson); and meet 20-year-old lyricist Gerry Goffin (Tom Milner).

For those unfamiliar with the King’s biography, I shan’t say too much on the plot, so it’s safe to read on.

**Molly-Cutler Grace & Tom Milner**…Credit: **Ellie Kurttz**

Soon an unplanned pregnancy induces a premature marriage twixt Goffin & King, and an artistically fruitful, if emotionally exhausting partnership is born. McGrath wisely folds in a B-plot featuring another song-writing powerhouse duo Barry Mann (Jos Slovick), and Cynthia Weil (Seren Sandham-Davies), contemporaries within the Kirshner writing stable. Friendly rivals to the King/Goffin axis, their inclusion offers both ‘will they/wont they?’ humour, and opens the songbook beyond King’s alone. King, and her rise to enduring fame, are the unquestionable focus of the show, but this broadened horizon adds richness, and a clutch of other immortal smash-hits.

When said smash-hits arise, penned by our protagonists, the show leans into them and the particularly autobiographical nature of so much of King’s work. Every time, the entire cast proves a drawer of vocal & instrumental swiss-army knives, and no song goes unloved, or uncelebrated. Some numbers are there just through dint of their multi-platinum selling histories, others are co-opted to soundtrack the drama unfolding in King’s life. Legendary acts are summoned on demand, including a fabulously choreographed, if perhaps slightly over-adrenaline fuelled set of Drifters (Kemi Clarke, Myles Miller, Kevin Yates); and some very-classily harmonic Shirelles (Naomi Alade, Amena El-Kindy, Louise Francis, Adrien Spencer).

*Drifters for the night*…Credit: **Ellie Kurttz**

There might, however, be one too many songs in the first act, which, only occasionally, slides closer to jukebox than musical. Killing your darlings (or someone else’s in this case) is tough, but it would give just a little more space for narrative, and drama. This critic might dare to suggest cutting ‘You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’ as the only song which fell noticeably short of the original. It’s not for lack of gusto, but much of the power of The Righteous Brothers stems/stemmed from their rather singular vocal characters.

However, Molly-Grace Cutler’s powerhouse performances aside, praise is required for Amena El-Kindy‘s roller-skating Act 1 turn as Little Eva. Her voice is spot on, the production is just right; this number must be saved from the above cut at all costs.

This is a large cast, but the stage is never cluttered, and when it’s all hands on deck, kudos are due to Choreographer Leah Hill for marshalling such a free moving, yet efficient flow of bodies. The dance numbers are handled confidently, and even when the action approaches maximal complexity, there’s never the least hint of chaos.

Visually, the show doesn’t disappoint either, with a classy set from Designer Frankie Bradshaw. At heart a monumental recording studio — fittingly — it slips easily into domestic scenes and back again, through an admirably simple use of props. Ben Cracknell’s elegant, and never-overworked lighting design also adds some real shine to moments both small, and triumphant.

I stop now to heap praise upon Sound Designer, Tom Marshall, Head of Tour Sound Zachary Woodman, and Production Sound Engineer James Hartland, who conjure a fabulous, and adaptive sound at all times. Touring musicals, at least in this critic’s experience, are prone to sub-optimal soundscapes. Maybe it’s poor sound-checking, maybe it’s something more fundamental, but not so with Beautiful; it sounds beautiful!

In closing, a huge bravo to director Nikolai Foster for nurturing such a nakedly joyful, and yet precision engineered show. It goes without saying that if Carole King (Molly Grace-Cutler) wasn’t a star the whole thing wouldn’t work, but she’s great, so it does.