Review: New SINGIN' IN THE RAIN Makes Us Happy Again

If only life were a dance musical. If only music started when you kiss the girl, and if only your feet could do the talking when your tongue gets tied. Wouldn't life be a little - or a lot! -more fun if we spent more time singing in the rain? This gorgeous production of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN sure makes it seem so. Sometimes - you just gotta dance!

For all that I love the new breed of musical - political, button-pushing, and sometimes downright genius (yes you, HAMILTON!), when it comes to pure enjoyment, it's hard to beat the thrill of watching an old-fashioned dance off. Choreographer Andrew Wright gives us moment after glorious moment of toe-tapping goodness in this West End transplant - from the dance moves, to the dancers, and their stunning, technicolour costumes, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is a visual treat, start to finish. Almost.

I say almost, because there was something a little flat about the beginning of this show. A curious lack of energy that only really starts to spark when the effervescent Gretel Scarlett shows up as the feisty, talented chorus girl Kathy Selden. Before that, Adam Garcia as movie star Don Lockwood, and Jack Chambers as his bestie - both fiercely talented men, no doubt - seem to be playing it small. Scarlett brings a kind of shine from her very first scene, and this in turn lifts the men's game. By the time the trio dances themselves to exhaustion in the classic number Good Morning, the show is wide awake too, and we're right where we're supposed to be as an audience - suspending our disbelief and tapping our own feet and fingers right along.

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is a beloved musical, yet at heart it's a pastiche production - the songs, by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, were all pulled from other shows after-all, and not every number makes for a hit. It doesn't really matter though, not when the first bars of that titular song start playing. Singin' in the Rain as a tune is just so familiar, so hopeful, so joyful, that you forget about some of the lesser numbers. When the rain starts falling (all 12,000 litres of it) and Garcia starts his splashing, it really is a magical musical theatre moment, bringing a palpable buzz to the audience as Act 1 closes.

Act 2 is even stronger, with the sumptuous Broadway Ballet sequence transporting us from 1920's Hollywoodland to the ageless heart of Musical Theatre-land. It's also in Act 2 that the delightful Erika Heynatz gets to shine as the ditzy, vocally challenged Lina Lamont. Looking like a cross between Jennifer Lopez and Jean Harlow, Heynatz brings such tragi-comic perfection to her Lamont lament What's Wrong With Me that you almost feel sorry for the vocally challenged gal. Again - almost!

Over all, this is a first-rate production that demands as much of its three leads as any musical ever has. Garcia, Chambers and Scarlett have great chemistry together, and their dance numbers, most notably in the closing moments, are infused with that particular kind of joy only musicals can bring. You know the kind, right? That glorious, smile on your face feeling. And the reminder that it only takes 2 hours and 40-some minutes to get happy again. Even - or especially - when it's pouring with rain.

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN

Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne

For tickets and more information click here

Images: Supplied

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