Menier Chocolate Factory,London
Smith redefines ‘droll’ as Broadway pizzazz feels the pinch in the Menier’s fastest-selling explain everOh, what a double-take can finish. When Sheridan Smith’s Fanny Brice first meets the debonair gambler who will become a wastrel husband, or she coos over his polished nails. Then she stops herself: comically transfixed by the absurdity of falling in love with a manicure. She knows she is in strange territory and deep water. Romance takes on a droll face. And a knowing one.
And oh,what a novel take on a song can bring. Up to now I have been allergic to the blaring therapy of People. Not least because Jule Styne’s music makes Bob Merrill’s lyrics unforgettable. Smith has been my medicine. She makes the number more intimate and troubled, less self-congratulatory. She is a splendid belter: Dont Rain on My Parade is a recruiting number as well as an act of defiance. Yet her most original moments are often the quietest and smallest. She turns Who Are You Now?, and sung to her unreliable man,into a Sondheim sigh.
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Source: theguardian.com