Theatre Review: Jersey Boys @ The Regent

Review by Dave Stringer:

The Tony Award winning musical Jersey Boys is back on tour to celebrate its twentieth anniversary and is spending this week at the Regent Theatre Hanley.

The great news is that this beautiful production is showing no signs of showing its age and remains one of those must see pieces of musical theatre. It may well fall into the genre known as jukebox due to its adherence to the music of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons but, unlike many shows that fall Into the often maligned genre, it truly has a story to tell.

Jersey Boys takes the audience through the whole cycle of a hugely popular music act from its struggles to establish itself as a known act as it plays gigs in the backwoods to audiences of single figures all the way through to the superstar days and beyond.

From the industrial heartland of New Jersey, Tommy DeVito (Carlo Boumouglbay) tries to escape a life that sees him in and out of a prison cell by establishing himself as the leader of a musical group that rotates its name almost weekly.

The personnel are ever-changing too as members find themselves in incarceration but the big turning point is when Frankie Valli (Luke Baker) and his falsetto voice is found to front the quartet. The final piece of the jigsaw is the acquisition of songwriter Bob Gaudio (Toby Miles) who joins a quartet that is completed by Nick Massi (Lewis Kennedy). Manager Bob Crewe (Michael Levi) – who lives his life through the lens of astrology – chooses the final name when he takes a flashing sign as an omen.

Unfortunately, there is always tension behind the scenes. Tommy, despite seeing himself as the leader, gets the group into terrible financial difficulties. Meanwhile, Frankie and Bob make a pact to earn money when not performing with the Seasons and Nick becomes increasingly frustrated as he often claims that he is leaving to form his own band.

It all comes to a head when the mob come after Tommy for the money owed. A favour is called in on Capo of the local Mafia Gyp DeCarlo (Fed Zanni) to sort out the financial mess but it is at the expense of Tommy’s exile. With Nick announcing his departure and Bob announcing that he is no longer comfortable with performing, Frankie is left as a solo performer with Bob promising him that, with the backing of a new Four Seasons, he will go on to greater heights and achieve his dream of playing in front of a band with a horn section.

When this happens, the rendition of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You absolutely brings the house down and caps a fabulous night of music.

The female parts are fleeting and are designed to show the downside of a band at the height of success but is constantly touring and away from home. The temptations of booze, drugs and loose women are difficult to deny and there are a number of personal tragedies. So, a big hand to Artemis Chrisoulakis, Sydney Hocknell Olivia Mitchell for so effectively portraying the counterpoint to the success and glamour with a miserable background.

There is a truly poignant finale as the original members of the group are inducted into the Hall of Fame and Tommy reveals the irony that he now works for actor Joey Pesci (Aiden Carson) who was so abused by the founder member in his youth.

With such a huge back catalogue of hits to choose from, many of the numbers chosen are teasing snatches but when the full number is played it is sung to perfection and the co-ordinated moves are absolutely on point. With the use of some innovative projections, this is a wonderful experience for all of the senses for those in the audience.

There is a lovely feel good atmosphere about Jersey Boys and the moral seems to be that we can all find our path through the stormy times and eventually find our way to a happy place. A truly five-star production.

Jersey Boys has a running time of 2 hours 30 minutes including interval and continues until Saturday 31^st October. For ticket information contact atgtickets.com/Stoke