Time Heals *almost* Everything!

Last week, I went along to Manchester's Opera House to see a show which I did not know a lot about, and was the second production from Chichester Festival Theatre that I have seen this year (the first of which being Gypsy): Mack and Mabel, which is based on the real-life romance of silent film director Mack Sennett and his star Mabel Normand, during a time when movies involved tying the heroine to the railway tracks, the Bathing Beauties, the Keystone Cops, and it all ended with an inevitable pie in the face.

Mack and Mabel is one of the lesser-known works of Jerry Herman, who also wrote Hello Dolly and La Cage Aux Folles, and originally opened on Broadway
in 1974 with Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters as the two leads. It then went on to play in London in 1995 and then in 2006 and was nominated for 8 Tony nominations; however, this is where the good history stops there. Though I said it was nominated for a good number of awards, it didn't win any of them. What's more is that the original Broadway show closed after only 8 weeks and has never been revived since across the pond. You see, Mack and Mabel does not exactly have the happiest ending, and though there are an abundance of big glum shows nowadays (looking at you Les Mis, Miss Saigon etc etc), audiences at the time weren't ready for that - or for a cocaine-snorting heroine at that. The West End production even changed the ending to make it happier, similar to what they did with the film version of Little Shop of Horrors!

So far, it's not exactly the brightest picture - so is it as bad as all that?

I'm first going to go into the score first. For me personally, the material was good in it's own right, but there wasn't really a tune which I came away with humming after the show had ended. Sure there are some good numbers (I Won't Send Roses, Time Heals Everything and Tap Your Troubles Away were in particular ones that I remember), but they weren't exactly One Day More to me (oh NOW I have that song in my head.... never mind, moving on). It is the best of Herman's music? As it is the first show of his I have seen, I cannot possibly say. Now, as far as the story is concerned, it did make me relate to the characters and it certainly made me laugh in places, though I feel that there are better plots with much tighter scripts than that of Mack and Mabel. Comparing it to the musical with the most similarities, Singin' in the Rain, it doesn't quite match up.

But enough with the bad and on with the good - and a lot of the good came from Michael Ball! Now, being honest, if it were not for Ball being in it, I would have probably given the entire show a miss. However, he is the King of musical theatre in this country, and having seen him before in Hairspray many years ago, I just had to show my parents how he shines on stage, so how can I not miss it!
Ball played Mack beautifully, completely 100% stealing the show!

Mack is one of the most arrogant characters in theatre I have seen, Ball brought that out in abundance, as well as his tender moments. One highlight for me was the beginning of the show during Movies Were Movies, Mack's song reminiscing back to the "good old days" while the set flashes us back there similar to after the prologue in Phantom  - though of course switching the Paris Opera House with Sennett's film studio.

Oh and the best thing about Ball being in the show...... I ONLY WENT AND GOT HIS AUTOGRAPH!!!!!! Oh and he's such a gent!

But this isn't completely the-Michael-Ball-show, there were other people in the cast of course.... =P
New-comer Rebecca LaChance played young Mabel and I got really engaged in her performance and character, and her vocals during her solo performances were just incredible! Anna-Jane Casey was brilliant as Lottie, especially in Tap Your Troubles Away, where she really got to show off how good of a performer she is (she has also been on the Proms a couple of times so it is worth checking her out on YouTube); and finally, I have to mention Gunnar Cauthrey as Mack's shy writer Frank. I had seen Gunnar last year as Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors last year, which I think was the best thing I had saw all year - Cauthrey was great as Seymour and he was great as Frank. I managed to get his autograph as well as Ball's and he was so nice when I told him about Little Shop - I should have brought that programme with me too to sign =P

So, is the show worth seeing after all this? Well, if you are a Michael Ball fan YES!!! It is definitely worth the ticket price for him alone. If you're not, I will leave it up to you. I feel like I have given this show perhaps a little bit more stick than normal, but like that is just my personal opinion and all. I am still glad I went to see it, as the story and characters did keep me engaged throughout the piece. It has left Manchester now I think, but it will be touring up and down the country in the next few months.