Pretty Woman - the Musical Review

I must confess my expectations were low coming into this musical. I’m always wary of spin-offs, sequels, prequels, and the rest of the potential money grabs that come with a success, as few of them ever live up to the quality of the original. But I was curious and keen to be back in the theatre, so decided to take a gamble. Alas, it still managed to disappoint, even though I wasn’t expecting much to begin with.

This show is very much a tale of two musicals: the material versus the performers. I have to say, there are few musicals I have been to where the vocal quality was so good across the board. All the main characters and solo singing parts had amazing voices and there was barely a note out of place. True, I was at times left with the suspicion that there may have been a degree of lip-syncing, but I’m sure that was due to my sky high seats; this is the West End after all! The dancing was solid, particularly the immensely funny if inexplicable tango; however, the acting didn’t quite live up to the singing. Alongside the main cast, the ensemble was all competent and secure, and I loved seeing that one of the members was heavily pregnant yet still onstage. It was truly heartwarming to see how the pregnancy was either woven into the story or expertly hidden with some savvy costumes. It felt like an important step for female performers and made me smile to no end.

Aimie Atkinson as Vivian was somewhat charming and showed off her singing chops, even if with too many vocal tics for my personal preference. Rachel Wooding as Kit had such a powerhouse of a voice that I was left wondering why she had been relegated to the bestie rather than the main role. Bob Harms’s Mr. Thompson was hilarious in his demure over-the-topness and showed just how versatile his singing can be. The two opera singers, Kimberly Blake and Oliver Brenin, proved they had what it takes to tackle Verdi, and a special mention to Alex Charles who, making his West End debut, stole every scene he was in with his endearing bellhop Giulio. For last, I have left Danny Mac as his rendition of Edward leaves me somewhat confused. The show heavily copies the film (more on that later), up to and including the original actors’ mannerisms. Now, I have always described Richard Gere in Pretty Woman as having the expressiveness of a brick wall so it’s hard to gauge if that’s what Mac was aiming for. He had a lovely voice - albeit perhaps more well-suited to something like Waitress - but was somehow utterly devoid of charisma, making it impossible to understand why Vivian would fall in love with him.

As I mentioned, the musical in many ways tries to be a facsimile of the film. Costumes, minor jokes, word for word scenes, all are there in an attempt to be faithful to the source (or to rip it off, depending on the level of cynicism the audience is feeling). Which made me ponder: what is it about the film that makes it so likeable? It’s certainly not the modern-day Cinderella story, that has aged poorly and even in 1990 stretched believability to an almost breaking point. It’s not the plot, given that there isn’t much there at all, much less the lacklustre dialogue. No, Pretty Woman works because Julia Roberts shines in every single moment and, despite his wooden performance, her chemistry with Gere is palpable. So when you remove that, you’re not left with much that is interesting. In making it a musical, none of the issues of the original were addressed; on the contrary, the addition of Mr. Happy as a narrator/fairy godfather figure diminishes the empowering aspect of the original by framing Vivian’s story through a male perspective. Also, the way in which the songs were added feels very forced and tends to cut the flow of the story. To be honest, I found myself physically rolling my eyes each time a song started. Me. A singer and singing teacher!

Speaking of difficult truths to stomach, I couldn’t believe that this was part-composed by Bryan Adams. I actually tend to like his songs but it seems that none of his talent made it into Pretty Woman nor did the other half of the composing team, Jim Vallance, offer any either. There is no cohesive musical style, some songs being in the singer/songwriter vein, others popish, still others in a sort of generic musical theatre style. The one thing they all had in common was that they already sound outdated despite a 2018 premiere. I was bored and seriously considering leaving at the interval but then the second half delivered an extra infuriating blow. How lazy do you have to be to try and increase the appeal of your supposedly original show by adding a whole section of “La Traviata” in it?? Worse, to then remix it with music of vastly lower quality?! Lucky it’s all public domain or I can only imagine the glorious put-down Verdi would serve up. It felt incredibly disrespectful and angered me to not end. Not content with this, the whole second act keeps hinting at Roy Orbison’s titular song then presents it to us as the big finale. Again, if your climatic moment is someone else’s music, perhaps you should reconsider your whole approach to composition.

All in all, I didn’t enjoy the experience of watching this show and I actually felt sorry for the cast, that their formidable talent is being wasted on what I can only imagine will be a short-lived West End run.

Conclusion: Nuh-uh [what's this?]

Pretty Woman reopened at the Savoy Theatre in July 2021 after closing for over a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.