Chicago review: Razzle dazzle returns to delight us in the West End

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Fiona Mountford12 April 2018

It’s a real pleasure to have the old razzle-dazzle back in town. This slinky, sultry, sizzling Kander and Ebb musical about murder as showbusiness previously ran in London for 15 years and here it is, with knees rouged and stockings down, to appal and delight us once more. On board this time for the jazz hands ride is Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr as celebrity criminal lawyer Billy Flynn.

Gooding gives an amiable enough performance, but he doesn’t boast a strong or confident singing voice. Instead the show belongs, as it must, to those two publicity-hungry murderesses, Velma Kelly (Josefina Gabrielle) and Roxie Hart (Sarah Soetaert), who vie to outwit each other when it comes to column inches. Towering even over them in the magnificence stakes is Ann Reinking’s delicious choreography in the trademark angular black-clothed manner of Bob Fosse. It’s a constant lithe and limber delight throughout this slick and pacey show.

Every number in the production, based on Walter Bobbie’s original New York direction, is vivid and individual. The lively band, in which trumpet and trombones play with particular flourish, takes up a large chunk of the stage, but this leads to a stylish pared-back staging.

All That Jazz is the first song and what a statement of intent this is, powerfully performed by Velma who is still enjoying top dog status before being usurped by upstart Roxie. The imperious Gabrielle and the fizzy Soetaert make a fine pair, or perhaps that should be double act.

Special mention must go to Paul Rider, who gets great mileage out of Roxie’s downtrodden husband Amos. Amos’s wistful solo, Mister Cellophane, is a treat. As, indeed, is almost everything else. Crime, it seems, does pay.

Until Oct 6

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