Tonight's definitely not the night. The biggest problem with the new wave of musicals (Cliff The Musical, We Will Rock You and Tonight's The Night) featuring songs from an artiste (Cliff Richard, Queen and Rod Steward respectively) is that unlike traditional musicals which rely on a story or concept that is strengthened by songs, these musicals rely on a song book supported by a story. In most cases, the story leaves a lot to be desired since all semblance of a coherent plot is jettisoned to fit songs into context. Tonight's the Night provides the perfect example of how an artiste's songbook dictates the plot.
Perhaps realizing the inadequacies of this musical, producers of the show have decided to concentrate on its supposed strengths and they undertook an expensive campaign to rename the musical as "The Rod Steward Musical" with "Tonight's The Night" (the original title) being relegated to a subtitle (See posters on the left). This publicity move seems to be in vain since the closure of the musical (30 October 2004) was announced barely months after it. Renaming this musical may draw in marginal Rod Steward fans who did not know of the existence of such a musical, but ultimately, the musical's biggest weakness is the poor score based on Rod Steward songs. At present, this weakness is ironically on full display in its new title.
With student standby tickets costing an excessive
£22.50, the cheapest alternative to watching Tonight's The Night is to
get a ticket for a Thursday matinee. All tickets for this matinee cost
£17.50, regardless of whether one is sitting in a center stalls seat or
at the back of the upper circle so it may be best to make bookings
earlier. The biggest risk of such a pricing
scheme for a matinee performance is that it seemed very likely that most
of the principal performers would have been replaced by their
understudies to "save" the leads for the evening performance.
Not being a fan of Rod Steward's songs and because I was not willing to
pay £22.50 for what could potentially have been a hastily put
together tribute show, this was a risk I was willing to take.
Fortunately, in the performance that I saw, with the exception of the
role of Rocky Washington who was played by Thern Reynolds instead of Tim
Funnell, the rest of the cast remained intact.
When I purchased my ticket one and a half months ago, there was a wide range of seats still available. For the actual performance, most of the seats had been filled by an older demographic. No doubt that younger audiences were watching England take on Switzerland in the Euro 2004 soccer match. Despite the warnings of the box office staff, I bought a ticket for row C (the second row in the Victoria Palace Theatre) because of my preference to see performances close up. However, I was taken aback when I saw how high the stage was raised when I entered the theater. Fortunately, it did not turn out too badly once the musical started but a seat in row F is probably more ideal at the Victoria Palace.
Tonight's The Night tells the Faustian tale of a shy, sensitive and unconfident Detroit gas station worker, Stuart Clutterbuck (Tim Howar) who sells his soul to Satan (Hannah Waddingham) in exchange of Rod Steward's soul in order to get the girl that he loves. Unknown to him, Sweet Lady Mary (Dianne Pilkington) loved him for who he was before his transformation but his change definitely hastened the process for both of them to jump into a bed (which incidentally elevates itself on stage like it is floating for some reason unknown to the audience). Eventually, Clutterbuck falls in love with a life of rock and roll; Mary still loves Clutterbuck; Clutterbuck's good friend, Washington, loves Mary and Washington's good friend, Dee Dee (Debbie Kurup), loves Washington. It comes as no surprised in the end how this "love chain" is resolved. Clutterbuck realizes the errors of his ways and chooses to give up a rock and roll lifestyle for Mary and Satan reverses the soul switch when she realizes that she didn't cause the chaos that she was expecting.
The
plot is as simple as it sounds and while Ben Elton's witty dialogue is
commendable, his book for the musical really disappoints. The direction
of each scene moves according to Rod Steward song. How do you incorporate
the song "Hot Legs"? Add an unnecessary scene with massage
girls dancing and singing in short skirts. Throw in a character called
"Baby Jane" (Catherine Porter) and suddenly the song of the same name can be
sung. Including the song "Sailing" is not tricky if you
suddenly get the cast on a yacht on their honeymoon at the end of
the musical.
Satan and her devils prance around in a few numbers but there is no doubt that they were there just to sing a few more of Rod Stewards' songs. Waddingham does her best looking evil as Satan but there's only so much she can do sticking out her tongue with such a weak story. Howar does a credible job playing Clutterbuck, mastering a rooster strut, having a head of hair like Rod Steward and even employing a rasp to his singing voice. However, he does tend to overdo his whoops and cheers in his songs like Stay With Me. Do Ya Think I'm Sexy and Tonight I'm Yours are two of the better numbers but ultimately, this does not say very much given the weak songbook being used for this musical. At the end, he jumps into the audience, hugs and kisses some of the ladies who are dancing in the aisle.
The individual performer whom I enjoyed seeing the most has to be the ever reliable Kurup, whom I had previously seen as Mimi in the musical Rent. She sings her group and solo numbers excellently and it is unfortunately that an individual of her talent has to be part of the supporting cast in this mediocre musical.
Not everything about this musical is bad though. The choreography by Stephen Mear is well-executed and the sets are a sight to behold especially when the gas station transforms into the yacht in the final scene. However, given the severe limitations in its script and score, this clearly is not enough to attract an audience.
Tonight's The Night tried to emulate the success of Queen's We Will Rock You and on the surface, there are a number of similarities. Both have a book written by Ben Elton which barely holds together (Although it may be safe to say that Elton probably spent more time setting out the plot in Tonight's The Night than for We Will Rock You). Both are based on music by an artiste or group. Both also resemble concerts at times. However, Tonight's The Night doesn't have as many recognizable songs to the young audience with the ability to pay. More importantly, Queen has a much larger base of fanatic fans than Rod Steward who are more than happy to make repeated visits to their musical. A good barometer of such feel-good musicals is the level of enthusiasm the audience displays during the show. In Jailhouse Rock which I had watched in the same week, certain parts of the audience stood up and started dancing without prompting at the end. Not only did Howar have to tell the audience to dance in this performance, in one scene of the musical, he introduces the band only to get silence from the audience. In response, he shouts out, "This is where you give it up for the band!". His embarrassing "Okay, back to the plot" after the applause sums up the credibility of this musical.
Reviewed on 19 June 2004