“Murder, greed, corruption, exploitation, adultery and treachery…all those things we hold near and dear to our hearts”. So starts one of the most famous musicals of all time: Chicago.
Back to the New Victoria for another run comes Chicago – having, I’m delighted to report, lost none of its excitement along the way. When it was first produced in 1975 out went the boy meets girl romantic musicals popular at the time and in came a show that, as we are told in the introduction, promoted murder, greed, corruption, exploitation, adultery and treachery as its story line. Nevertheless, it is entertainment with a capital ‘E’.
Based on real events in the Chicago of the roaring twenties, it depicts life in an era when mobsters ruled, money talked and pretty women could expect to receive more favourable justice. Much of the show takes place within a women’s prison – where, one has to say, they wear more revealing outfits than I suspect would have been likely back in the 1920s.
Two attractive murderesses, Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, vie for the services of a lawyer with an enviable reputation for getting acquittals and he knows it! For the right price he will sway a jury in your favour – the judge he probably already has on his pay roll. Even within prison itself there are benefits that can be bought – providing one is nice to the lesbian Matron.
But the show is more than just a prison story. It is filled with show stopping musical numbers by Fred Ebb and John Kander and exhilarating dance routines taken from the original production that established Bob Fosse as an award winning choreographer and who, incidentally, with Fred Ebb, is responsible for the book.
All praise then to the lead players: Hayley Tammadon as Roxie, Sophie Carmen-Jones as Velma, John Partridge as Billy Flynn the lawyer and Jessie Wallace as Matron ‘Mama’ Morton but it is the support they get from the rest of the cast that makes this show such an enjoyable evening.
Chicago is showing until October 22, for tickets visit atgtickets.com
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