Evita is back on London's West End for a limited run of just 55 performances, and the reviews are in.
Storming the Dominion Theatre - recently vacated by the long-long-long-running We Will Rock You - the show has picked up generally positive feedback, with criticism coming in for Wet Wet Wet frontman Marti Pellow in the role of Che.
Check out what the major publications are saying below.
The Guardian - 4 stars: "If the show still works, it is largely because it boasts one of Lloyd Webber’s best, most tightly composed scores. It uses Latin American rhythms, military marches, and wistful ballads yet constantly returns to a key melodic phrase in the big number. Rice’s lyrics also offset Lloyd Webber’s inherent romanticism and contain sharp couplets such as Che’s “instead of government we had a stage, instead of ideas a prima donna’s rage”. The only problem is that I didn’t catch those lines in the vast Dominion. One day I’d like to see this musical in an intimate, studio version where audibility trumped spectacle."
London Evening Standard - 3 stars: "Marti Pellow, of Wet Wet Wet fame, makes an almighty hash of the part of cynical narrator Che. He can’t sustain a note and the concept of keeping in time appears totally beyond him. Yet those indestructibly fine songs — of which Don’t Cry for Me Argentina isn’t the best — wow us once more."
The cast of Evita (Photo: PR)
The Telegraph - 3 stars: "It contains some of Lloyd Webber’s most exquisite music. I admire its ambition. I am grateful for its existence. But I think it’s equal parts beauty and bombast… On the opening night of its return to the West End, lighting up a fancily refurbished Dominion Theatre for a limited season, did I care about the fate of its heroine, played in the original production by Elaine Paige and here by radiant Portuguese star-in-the-making Madalena Alberto? Not really until the closing stages, when stirring strings and Alberto’s powerfully affecting performance had me teetering on the brink of tears at the spectacle of premature death."
The Independent - 2 stars: "The music is brilliant as ever; it’s the bits in between the songs that are the problem. The actors’ over-blown gestures seem strained. Madalena Alberto plays Eva Peron, Argentina’s “spiritual leader”. Her vocal range is fabulous as both a coquettish teenager and imposing First Lady but she lacks charisma."
Madalena Alberto (Photo: PR)
Daily Mail - 4 stars: "This too-brief revival – set to run only until the start of November – reminds us of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s superb melodies: Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, Another Suitcase in Another Hall, On This Night Of A Thousand Stars and more. It also, thanks to recent events, has an unexpected topicality, for does the example of Juan Peron in Argentina in the 1940s and 50s not show us the limits of nationalism?"
WhatsOnStage.com - 4 stars: "If you caught it on one of its provincial tours you'll know what to expect: a free-flowing, uncluttered performance set amid layered colonnades and a segmented travelling balcony. Kenwright and his co-director Bob Tomson have steeped themselves in this score and their polished account teases out nuggets of subtext at every turn, abetted on this occasion by the devastatingly good Eva of Madalena Alberto. Her co-star is another matter. Marti Pellow may be a charismatic and individual pop singer but he is what he is – and Che isn't it."
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