A fabulous musical experience, The Cher Show is a feel-good whistle-stop tour through Cher’s greatest hits in life, love, and music.
📍Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
📅Tue 11 to Sat 15 Oct
💷 From £23.50
🕖 Evenings: 7.30pm | Matinees: Thu & Sat, 2.30pm
🕖 Running time (approx.): 2 hours 40 minutes (including interval)
🗣️ Book: Rick Elice
🎬 Director: Arlene Phillips
🩰 Choreographer: Oti Mabuse
🪡 Costume Designer: Gabriella Slade
🛠️ Set Designer: Tom Rogers
🎼 Musical Supervisor, Orchestrations/Arrangements: Rich Morris
🎂 12+
🎭 Captioning 13th Oct 7:30pm; Audio Description, BSL Interpretation, Touch Tours 15th Oct
The Cher Show, is a production of ROYO, the team of Tom de Keyser & Hamish Greer also responsible for the undeniably weak new Osmond’s musical which visited Edinburgh less than a month ago. Fortunately this jukebox biography of Cherilyn Sarkisian is a far slicker, more coherent production than its stablemate. Premiered at the Oriental Theatre, Chicago in June 2018, the show transferred to Broadway for a solid 18-month run. A US tour was planned thereafter, but as we all know, 2020 had other plans for us all than trips to the theatre.
Just like Cher, however, the show has refused retirement, and with Arlene Phillips taking the directorial seat, the show (with a few modifications) has been on the road since April 2022. Well, the USA’s loss is certainly the UK’s gain, because it’s a very, very good show; and better than the original staging, in The QR’s opinion.
3 marvellous performers take on the lead role, embodying different phases in the legendary performer’s life from Millie O’Connell as the 50’s/60’s Babe, to Danielle Steers as 70’s Lady, and culminating with Debbie Kurup’s 80’s/90’s Star. Thankfully, Elice’s book eschews a completely linear progression, having the latter summon her alter-egos at the top of the show. ‘It’s just so much easier to talk to myself when I’m all here,’ she explains.
What could easily come over as gimmicky instead comes over as a most natural way to embody a career spanning decades, and multiple reinventions. There’s fun to be had when the ‘Chers’ get together, a mutual admiration club barbed with experience-bought opinions. It makes expositional scenes & numbers more dynamic than if left to only 1.
Of course the show necessarily lives and dies on the quality of the central 3, and they do not disappoint. There’s complete ownership in each performance: O’Connell is a joyful, slightly awkward Babe, Steers embodies svelte composure as Lady, whilst Kurup is wrapped in self-accepting fabulousness as Star.
If Kurup has the x-factor required to helm the production, then it’s Steers who takes the vocal laurels. Which isn’t to say all 3 don’t excel vocally, only that Steers has the tone, and thrilling horsepower to fully master Rich Morris’s full-on musical arrangements. That said, Kurup absolutely smashes the rendition of ‘Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves’ which opens the second act.
Critically, each actor also mounts a thoroughly credible impersonation: it simply wouldn’t be The Cher Show, without the Cher voice.
Between these 3, Cher’s back-catalogue, and some excellent work from Sound Designer Dan Samson, and Musical Director Danny Belton, there’s all the ingredients for a great tribute concert. What makes it a fabulous show, is Elice’s fun-filled book. Ably assisting the Cher’s is Sonny (Guy Woolf), her first husband to the uninitiated, and partner in music &comedy for many years. Woolf gives a super performance, goofy, charming, but above-all, ambitious; the comic musings he shares with Lady a gentle chuckle-fest amidst the musical extravaganza. He leads a strong supporting cast which propels the story along, from Sam Ferriday in a clutch of roles including Cher’s post-Sonny loves, Greg Allman and Rob Camilletti, and an extravagant Jake Mitchell as fashion designer Bob Mackie.
Mackie designed the outfits for the original show, but it’s Gabriella Slade we have to thank for the UK tour’s excellent wardrobe; which erupts in sparkling magnificence in the finale.
The soundtrack is lovingly rendered, though adapted as needed, a few of the songs, particularly ‘Strong Enough’ threaded thematically through the whole shebang. There’s no reinvention of the wheel going on, but it delivers precisely what it promises to: The Cher Show.
A couple of alterations do improve the show from its Broadway forebear, not least stripping out a needless appearance of Lucille Ball as a passing advisor to Lady, leaving a sweet voiced Tori Scotti to play Cher’s mum, Georgia, without doubling up. Beyond that, and more important, this UK tour doubles down on the visual splendour on offer. Tom Rogers and team have created a somewhat monumental backstage to house the performance, and each set-piece benefits from Oti Mabuse’s effusive choreographies amidst an often dazzling light show from Ben Cracknell.
If heart-felt and touching when dealing with Bono’s untimely death, and Cher’s other heartbreaks, this isn’t a warts and all biography. There’s no deep investigation of the psyche here, and ultimately it’s a feel-good whistle-stop tour through Cher’s greatest hits in life, love, and music. So whistle-stop that Cher’s ultimately Oscar-winning acting endeavours are wrapped up in a single all guns blazing rendition of ‘The Beat Goes on.’
Is it great musical theatre? Not really, but it’s a fabulous dramatic musical experience, anchored by 3 outstanding embodiments of Cher. It’s a show with nowhere to hide without a stellar all singing & dancing cast, which makes for a slim margin of success. Nonetheless, succeed this wonderful production has.
For a full disclaimer, I must admit that my wife (who accompanied me) threatened me with punishment if I didn’t award the show 5 stars. Given she exists deep within the show’s populous target demographic, I immediately bowed to her wisdom. It all comes down to taste, and even this less passionate fan of Cher got up to dance/clap at the finale, so it would be churlish to nitpick.
(Featured Photography Credit: Cheronstage.com)
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