How can I refuse when the wife says, “I’m working in London soon – shall I go to the half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square to get some theatre tickets for the evening?”

She’s quick to learn my lass – or just incredibly good at pandering to my wants…

I’d never thought that from our very first date as a bona fide couple to see ‘The Complete Works of Shakespeare’ by the Reduced Shakespeare Company up in Sheffield, she’d be so eager to keep going to the theatre!

My ploy seems to be working and soon there’ll be another member of the family to educate!! Actually, it will probably be a member of the family through whom Daddy can live all his childhood dreams of being an actor on the West End stage..!

Anyway – when theatre is suggested, you lot know I’m not one to refuse... That would be just plain rude!

And so it came to pass that we went to see ‘Tonight’s the Night’ at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London’s West End.

***THE THEATRE***

The Victoria Palace Theatre is located on Victoria Street, London where there has been a theatre since 1832 long before London Victoria Station came into being. The first theatre, of sorts, to be built there was the Royal Standard Music Hall.

When electricity arrived in the early 20th Century, drastic changes were made to the Music Hall – it was totally demolished and the Victoria Palace was built at a cost of £12,000.

Many shows have been staged at this theatre over the years from the first revival of ‘Me and My Girl’ in 1954 through to ‘Annie’ which ran for three and a half years during the 1980’s and ‘Barnum’ running for two years from 1984 and starred Michael Crawford.

The theatre has also played host to ‘Carry On London’ starring most of your favourite Carry On stars, perennial favourites ‘Buddy’, ‘Fame’ and ‘Grease’ and more recently a revival of Cole Porter’s ‘Kiss Me Kate’.

Now it is the home of another Ben Elton penned musical utilising that songs of one Rod Stewart…

***TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT***

-THE STORY-

The story begins in Hell with a very bored and very female Satan declaring her intentions to find a mortal whose life she can screw up entirely, just for the fun of it.

We move to Gasoline Alley, Detroit and tells the story of Stuart Clutterbuck, a grease monkey working in a Car Repair Shop. Stuart is a little bit of an idiot – or so his colleagues seem to think and pick on him mercilessly every day.

Stuart is in love with Mary and finds it difficult to express his love for her until he tries to write down his feelings in the form of a poem using the lyrics of Rod Stewart. Stuart is teased again and unbeknown to him Mary is in love with him too.

Frustrated as his efforts to write decent poetry, Stuart tells his colleagues he would sell his soul to get the chance to ask tell Mary exactly how he feels. Satan hears his request and grants him the opportunity to sell his soul. In fact Satan gets him to swap his soul with that of Rod Stewart and become God’s gift to women.

Stuart agrees and the exchange is made. He gets his girl, meets up with a band and begins to tour America as their lead singer finding out that the Rock and Roll lifestyle – partying, drinking and sleeping with the groupies – is actually quite good fun. That is, until Mary turns up to surprise him at a gig and finds out what he is really up to.

Cue broken hearts and Satan having a really good laugh until she discovers that her best loved rock star, Rod Stewart, has – since receiving the soul of Stuart Clutterbuck – renounced his rock star lifestyle and turned to Buddhism.

Can Satan get her rock star back without causing too much mayhem? Will Stuart and Mary ever get back together? If I were to tell you – I’m afraid I’d have to ruin the story…

***THE CHARACTERS***

STUART – The shy and unlucky in love greasemonkey who sells his soul to Satan in return for the soul of his hero, Rod Stewart.

SWEET LADY MARY – The love of Stuart’s life.

SATAN – In this case, Queen of the underworld.

BABY JANE GOLDEN – Rod Stewart’s rock star lifestyle loving Manager.

ROCKY WASHINGTON – Fellow grease monkey in Gasoline Alley. Also very much in love with Mary.

STONER – Lead Guitarist of the band Stuart teams up with. As his name suggests he is permanently stoned.

JORGE – Rod’s incredibly camp assistant.

***THE PICK OF THE CAST***

TIM HOWAR (STUART) – Great voice and a pretty darn good impression of Rod Stewart. He seemed to get the voice and the actions right. Performed in many major shows including ‘Miss Saigon’, ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘Joseph’.

HANNAH WADDINGHAM (SATAN) – Whipped up a storm as the devil in skin tight latex bondage-esque cat-suit. Great voice and fantastic dancing. Performed in ‘The Beautiful Game’ (a Webber musical written by – wait for it – Ben Elton), ‘Grease’ and ‘Smokey Joe’s Café’. Seen on TV in Brookside and My Hero.

MICHAEL McKELL (STONER) – Totally hilarious as a Mick Jagger-esque character whose life is for living on the road.

CATHERINE PORTER (BABY JANE GOLDEN) – Her interaction with Stoner provided the most laughs of the evening. Stunning, powerful voice too she has sung as a backing vocalist for Brian May, Queen, Roger Taylor and Kiki Dee.

***THE SONGS***

As you would expect with a show whose subtitle reads ‘The Rod Stewart Musical’ all the songs – over 20 of them – are Rod’s classics and instantly recognisable to the ‘Rod Stewart Fan Club’ who seemed to be in the evening I went and insisted on singing along…

The ones that made the biggest impression on me were:

‘IT TAKES TWO’ – Sung by Stuart and Mary on the night after Stuart gets Rod’s soul back at Stuart’s flat.

‘I DON’T WANNA TALK ABOUT IT’ – A fantastic song anyway, but incredibly poignant as it is sung by Rocky just after Mary has told him she still loves Stuart.

‘STAY WITH ME’ – Sung by Stuart as he is trying to convince Mary not to leave him after she has just found out about his rock and roll lifestyle on tour.

***THE SET***

The set is fantastic and seems to be really complicated. Hell is set in what looks to be an oven, surrounded by sheets of steel from the stage floor to the top of the curtains which folds in on itself as the scene transforms into Gasoline Alley.

Stuart’s bedroom flat trundles in from one side and spins round to give views from inside and outside the building and the front of a Greyhound bus plays the part of the band’s tour vehicle.

The garage at Gasoline Alley transforms before your eyes into a yacht for the finale.

The set is amazing and imaginatively designed by Lez Brotherston who also designed the costumes. Lez is currently working on a stage adaptation of ‘The Little Mermaid’ for Disney.

***THE CREATIVE TEAM***

Ben Elton – AUTHOUR AND DIRECTOR. Wrote the book and lyrics for ‘The Beautiful Game’ in a collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber and also wrote the script for ‘We Will Rock You’ currently playing at the Dominion Theatre in the West End. More well known for writing Blackadder’s 2, 3 and 4 with Richard Curtis and his own novels ‘Stark’, ‘Inconceivable’ and ‘High Society’.

Rod Stewart – MUSIC AND LYRICS. Enough said really. A career spanning nearly five decades and over 100 million record sales worldwide speak for themselves!

Stephen Mear – CHOREOGRAPHER. Taken part as a cast member in ‘Evita’, ‘Cats’ and ‘Song and Dance’. Put the dancing moves together for shows such as ‘Anything Goes!’, ‘Witches of Eastwick’ and ‘Don Giovanni’.

Phil McIntyre – PRODUCER. In theatre ‘Our House’ and ‘We Will Rock You’, produced live shows for people such as Rowan Atkinson, French and Saunders and Victoria Wood. Produced four world tours for Britain’s best loved ice-dance couple Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. Also manages Ben Elton, Caroline Aherne, Peter Kay and Victoria Wood amongst others. Where does he find the time to do all this?

***THE CONCLUSION***

OK then. Did I actually like it?

The simple answer is yes…and no.

Yes because the songs were great and performed by a wonderful, energetic cast with a wonderful set and interesting costumes.

No because the plot was incredibly weak and dialogue was more like dire-logue and flashy songs, dance routines, funky sets, incredible lighting alone do not make for a great evening. It’s nice also to have a story to follow.

What there is of the story is simple to follow: Boy sells his soul to get girl to love him, then ‘cause the deal is made with the devil things start to fall apart at the seams. It’s not going to challenge any theatregoer at all.

It’s not nice either when you can spot the ending a mile away – in fact from as early as half way through Act One when Satan bemoans the fact that her beloved Rod Stewart has gone crazy, stopped recording Rock music and moved to a commune in India with Richard Gere (that, by the way folks, is the standard of Mr Elton’s writing) you know what the ending is going to be.

Again – as with Mr Elton’s other back-catalogue musical ‘We Will Rock You’ – some songs have been shoehorned into place and sit totally out of the whole story. For example a bevy of female masseurs turn up to work their magic on Rod Stewart (also a character in the show, but never seen) just so we can have the benefit of the song ‘Hot Legs’.

There’s a horrific moment in Act Two – again as with ‘We Will Rock You’ - when it’s almost as if he’s suddenly remembered that there is supposed to be a point to all this and the ‘plot’ clunks into action thanks to one piece of dialogue given to one character that takes all of 2 minutes to say. In the case of ‘We Will Rock You’ that task fell to ‘Pop’, here it falls into the latex cat-suit of Satan.

There's a moment where a wonderful emotional feeling is set-up with the song 'I Don't Wanna Talk About It' - so much so that it sends shivers down your spine. Sadly, you're not able to emote for long as Satan appears to crack a naff Elton joke and ruin the atmosphere. I've never witnessed emotion be built up so much only for that to be flung back into the audience's face so quickly, not really giving us chance to digest the real implications and feelings of these two characters.

The dialogue that did work was that between Stoner and Baby Jane – some hilarious exchanges between the two wonderfully played out by the actors in question, but only went to show how woefully underwritten everyone else was.

Don’t get me wrong. The music was fantastic and brilliantly sung by a dedicated cast who seemed to be having the time of their lives and whose enthusiasm saved the evening from sinking quicker than the Titanic.

If you love Rod’s music – you’ll have a wonderful evening. If you love Ben Elton’s humour and think he is actually still as funny as he was many years ago – you’ll have a wonderful evening.

Even is you’re not a particular fan of either of them – you’ll leave tapping your feet and checking your hearing as, at times, the music is amplified to the point of distortion that you’ll feel your ears crying for mercy.

I’m glad I only paid half price for my seats thanks to Ken Livingstone’s ‘Get Into London 2004’ campaign – check out www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/getintolondontheatre for more details - as, sadly, the show is nowhere near as much fun as the Queen musical ‘We Will Rock You’.

See this show if you have bucketloads of cash or have a spare Thursday afternoon free (see ticket prices below to find out why) or are a huge Rod Stewart fan.

Go excepting great music and dancing, but prepare to be disappointed by the worst script and story marginally worse than ‘We Will Rock You’.

***THE PRICES***

Booking into June 2004 and probably much, much further too.

These prices are from the 9th February 2004.

Monday - Saturday evenings at 7.30pm.
Thursday and Saturday afternoons at 2.30pm.

Lasts 2 hours and 30 minutes approximately.

Prices:

Monday – Thursday evenings:
£45.00, £37.50, £24.50 and £15.00.

Friday evening:
£47.50, £40.00, £31.50, £27.00 and £17.50.

Saturday afternoons and evenings:
£55.00, £47.50, £34.00, £29.50 and £20.00

Thursday afternoons:
ALL TICKETS for ALL SEATS are priced at £17.50

By way of note the expensive tickets in the Stalls count from Row A - Row T. You pay the same price for sitting at the front as you do 20 rows back in the theatre.

Don't forget to add on your booking fee, £2.00 per booking over the phone from Ticketmaster. If you book on the internet a fraction of the ticker price is added on and also the £2.00 booking fee still stands. For example a Monday evening ticket priced at £45.00 will attract an extra £4.75 service fee PER TICKET plus the £2.00 fee per booking. Use the telephone to avoid paying the service fee or alternatively avoid all booking fees by visiting the box office in person.

Tickets have also been frequently available at the TKTS half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square priced at £25.00 (that price includes a £2.50 fee).

Wheelchair access is to seats in the Stalls – Row P seat 36 and Row M seat 36. Alternatively wheelchair users are allowed to transfer to any aisle seat in the Stalls. You should ask for centre isle seats for the best possible view. Wheelchair users must bring along a non-disabled companion to assist them.

Guide dogs are permitted to sit in the auditorium with their owner’s at an aisle or can be dog-sat by theatre staff.

An Induction Loop is fitted and 3 headsets are available for use with the system and need to be booked in advance.

Check out www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/access for more information about access issues.

Souvenir Brochuer costs £8.00 and is the best example of a good brochuer I've seen in ages. Full of photos and interviews.

The smaller programme costs £3.00.

***GETTING THERE***

You can travel to the theatre on any mainline service that goes into London Victoria Station or by underground to Victoria Station served by the District, Circle and Victoria Lines.

Victoria Bus Station is also nearby and is served by a huge number of buses throughout the day and night.

I hope you have found this review helpful and entertaining.

Thanks for reading.

C :o)

www.tonightsthenight.com
www.ticketmaster.co.uk

For excellent seating advice pay a visit to www.theatremonkey.co.uk .

PS - Scary news. Mike Read (former Radio 1 DJ) is currently writing a musical about 'The Village People'. I think now is the time to call a halt to the back catalogue musical, don't you?