Funny Girl - All Hail Sheridan!

Here's what our reviewer Andrew thought of Funny Girl when he saw it at Menier's Chocolate Factory in January 2016.

Target Audience: Musical fans looking for a classic show with an intimate atmosphere.

Morning After Effect: Looking up everything that Sheridan Smith has been in.

Standout Actor: Aside from Ms. Smith obviously, former Pop Idol runner-up Darius Campbell makes for a very suave Nicky Arnstein.

Best Bit: The double entendre loaded duet 'You Are Woman, I Am Man'.

Verdict: 4 out 5 stars

With tickets selling out hours after they had gone on sale, and a West End transfer coming up in April, there's no question that Funny Girl is one of the capital's hottest tickets. Much like Barbra Streisand before her, Dame-in-waiting Sheridan Smith is undoubtedly the main draw. This production promised a chance to catch a star of Smith's calibre up close and personal (my seat was about three metres from the stage), and to see whether the tiny Menier Chocolate Factory could squeeze the razzle dazzle of a Broadway show into its 180 seat capacity theater. I wasn't disappointed on either count.

First and foremost, Funny Girl is a hugely entertaining ride. A story of romance and ambition set in the lively world of early 20th Century vaudeville, it zips along at a lightning quick pace, without a single gloopy ballad to slow it down. The Menier's ingenious staging uses two moving walkways across the stage to help move the set around and are used convey that most exciting of stage actions - people getting from one place to another.

True to its name, this show boasts more belly laughs than a lot of comedies. However, while Harvey Fierstein's revised book plays up the comedy of the show to great effect, something of the drama is lost. The relationship at the heart of the show, between Fanny and debonair gambler Nicky Arnstein (Darius Campbell), never really produced much heat, and the emotional turmoil of the final act was lost to the hurried pacing.

It's easy to forget these quibbles though with Sheridan Smith at the center of the action. Easily banishing the spectre of Streisand with a mile-a-minute comic performance, she was a barely constrained burst of energy, who had the audience in the palm of her hand with a repetoire of winks and knowing asides. Her tour de force reached its zenith with the 'Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat' number, in which she waddled around the stage in a plumped up soldier's uniform and desperately tried to keep her taped moustache from slipping off. And when 'Don't Rain On My Parade' arrived, she more than delivered.

Funny Girl may not be the most well rounded musical in the world, and to a certain extent it lives or dies by its Fanny Brice. Fortunately, this scaled down staging at the Menier boasted one of London theatre's most electrifying thesps, and for all the star power that she radiated, Sheridan Smith could have been on the biggest stage in the world.

Reviewed by Andrew Drummond

Thursday 21 January 2016
Chocolate Menier Factory, London
Find me on Twitter: @_londontheatre_

View our show pages for more information about Funny Girl, Savoy Theatre.