This delightful American show, set in Memphis in 1955, pins down a pivotal moment in musical history with liberal gaiety. It is propelled as much by Joe DiPietro’s book as by the pounding score of David Bryan, a founder member of Bon Jovi.
The show’s story is relatively simple. Its hero, Huey Calhoun, is a poor white guy who inveigles his way into one of Memphis’s Beale Street clubs, where he falls head over heels for both the intoxicating rhythm and blues sound, and a young black singer, Felicia. He then insinuates himself into one of Memphis’s mainstream radio stations as a DJ and substitutes R&B for the blandness of Patti Page and Perry Como, with devastating results. But Tennessee’s strict segregation laws inevitably blight his romance with Felicia, and she is forced to choose between Huey and her burgeoning career.
It may be corny boy-meets-girl stuff, but DiPietro’s book also demonstrates the rigid brutality of segregation, the subversive power of popular music and the way radio was far ahead of national televison in accepting change. One of the most shocking moments comes when Huey is told that, if he wants to make it on one of the big networks, he’ll have to swap the black dancers he’s used on his local TV show for white ones.
Without descending into pastiche, the music captures, in numbers such as Everybody Wants to Be Black on a Saturday Night, the heady excitement of a moment when pop was undergoing seismic change. The show may lack the formal inventiveness of The Scottsboro Boys, but it is on the side of progress, and in Christopher Ashley’s recast Broadway production the story is put across with great verve.
We all know that Beverley Knight, who plays Felicia, is one of the best soul singers around, and she duly combines charisma and power. But, as I’ve never seen The Commitments stage show, the Irish-born Killian Donnelly is new to me and something of a revelation. He conveys all of Huey’s good-natured naivety while also proving, as he tips his titfer over his brows like a boy Sinatra, that he can punch across a song with real panache.
• Box office: 020-7379 5399. Venue: Shaftesbury, London.
