REVIEW - NINE The Musical in Concert is a masterpiece, an exceptional celebration of musical theatre as a true work of art

On Saturday, we went to Lowry in Salford to see NINE The Musical in Concert. Read what our reviewer Karen Ryder had to say about this special show...

What do you give a theatre for its ninth birthday?  NINE The Musical in Concert of course!  What entertainment do you get it?  The crème de la crème of Broadway, the West End, and the finest featured ensemble and cast of dancers!  The outcome?  The most spectacular, memorable, and unique birthday in town!  Following on from their ‘What’s On Stage – Best Concert Event’ nominated staged concert of Gypsy last year, Hope Mill Theatre have done it again!  This award - winning theatre, with highly respected Directors William Whelton and Joseph Houston, have taken their celebrations to Lowry this year, where a packed house awaited this Tony Award - Winning musical and stellar cast with appreciable excitement.  
   

Guido Contini is a passionate film making legend who puts his art above everything and everyone.  Devilishly handsome, his artistic focus is intoxicating and beautifully romantic, making him irresistible as a director, lover, husband and idol.  But as he faces his 40th birthday, doubt torments him, making him more demanding and self-absorbed than ever.  As a raging midlife crisis takes hold and grips Guido in its twisted talons, he not only loses sight of his movie, but of his beloved wife Luisa too.  With a heart too exhausted to make itself heard over the voices in Guidos conscience, memories of the women who have shaped his life, Luisa agrees to a spa retreat in an attempt to save their marriage.  But the infamous Guido is too beguiling for the press to offer any privacy, and so they hunt him down, striking him with intrusive questions about his private life and his upcoming film, a film for which Guido has no plot, no cast, and no idea.  His usual creative genius has abandoned him, leaving him frustrated and empty.

As Guido is plunged from the depths of his present into the increasingly demanding memories of his past, pivotal women haunt and taunt him, forcing him to relive uncomfortable trauma, punishment and rejection.  Mirrored into his present is his mistress Carla, and his muse actress Claudia, both of whose love and trust he abuses and manipulates for self gain.  With mounting pressure from his producer Liliane to create a masterpiece musical, Guido takes inspiration from a conversation with his leading actress Claudia, comparing him to Casanova.  He blends this image with his own colourful life and the women in it.  As Guido cruelly humiliates them for the sake of his film by using their personal conversations, he is oblivious to the carnage he is creating.  Luisa, Carla and Claudia are all heartbroken and appalled.   But Guido obsessively keeps the cameras rolling, capturing the rawness of Luisa’s heart as she ends their marriage.  As Guido commands “cut,” his movie ends, and so does his world.  He is alone.  Everyone has left.  Can Guido hope for a sequel with Luisa, or has she been written out of his story forever?

The stage is set as you enter the auditorium, a large orchestra divided by a small, raised platform, upon which lies minimal furniture.  The main stage is dressed simply with a few blocks, and a large screen sits central over a lavish rouged curtain.  NINE is emblazoned across the screen, the film reel revealing its supposed aged years by its scratches and flickering.  The screen starts with raw interview footage of the women in Guido’s life, continuing to be used by offering changing images throughout the performance to guide location, all the while keeping its sepia faded beauty.  As the music rings out, the ensemble begin to fill the stage, dressed strikingly simple in either a black or white dress, symbolic of the era of Guido Contini’s black and white movies.  Their choral singing rings out, creating a beautiful and ethereal sound, until there he is, alone on a chair.  Guido.

This musical is fast paced, and considering its themes of adultery, rejection, trauma, sex and suicide, is also incredibly witty, with sharp one liners and a delicious humour that catches you unaware.  NINE is dominated by women, with Guido and his younger self being a lone male figure.  It is a powerful image, especially in Folies Bergères when the stage is full of the finest sequined dancers, hypnotising us with their large, feathered fans.

Ramin Karimloo beguiles as the charismatic Guido.  He has developed such a complex and layered character that you can’t help but eye roll and clench at his disregard for women yet smile and be charmed by his equal adoration for them.  He even sings about what a complicated, contradicting figure he is Guido’s Song, a musical theatre masterclass of a performance by Ramin Karimloo that blew my mind.  He truly showed us the inner turmoil of his character, the racing thoughts of his current state of mind.  This impressive and persuasive performance was crucial so early on to allow us any kind of sympathy or connection with Guido, and this was subconsciously achieved to perfection.  To hear that powerful and iconic voice ring out in Lowry’s almost 2000 seated venue, was a beautiful and special moment that will stay with us.   

Victoria Hamilton-Barritt as Luisa, Guido’s wife, was exemplary in emoting her tangled and conflicting head versus heart relationship with Guido.  Every thought was visible on her face, including her struggle to hold back what she truly wanted to say to him.  This made her performance ever more real for we could all see it, but Guido couldn’t or wouldn’t.   Victoria Hamilton-Barritt’s soaring performance of Be On Your Own was breath taking.  A bittersweet summation of her marriage to Guido, we felt her unbearable heartache, anger, and consuming love turn to resignment.  Victoria Hamilton-Barritt really made the audience connect and empathise with her character.

And then we have the showbiz legend that is Ruthie Henshall as Liliane La Fleur, Guido’s fierce and fiery Producer who cuts straight through his blarney, immune to his charm.   Ruthie Henshall was born to play this strong, sassy, showbiz role.  Commanding and in control, Ruthie Henshall’s exquisite performance allowed us to see Guido through the lens of her sharp mind, a Guido that stripped bare of his charm, is a flustered, desperate, and damaged man.  Liliane had to give us a relationship free of sexual chemistry, and prove to be his equal, more than his equal in fact.  Guido had to work on her terms and her time, not the other way around, as is the case with the other women in his current life.  Ruthie Henshall provided all of this and more with her scintillating and sagacious performance throughout, and then when she leads the huge musical theatre number, with a full cast of sensational dancers in Folies Bergères, she brought the house down!  With her incredible voice and natural stage presence, we were reminded once more why Ruthie Henshall is an Olivier Award-winning performer.

Zizi Strallen cranks up the temperature and owns everyone in the theatre with her performance of A Call From The Vatican.  Sultry, sexy, and sparkling with confidence, this is a bold and striking performance that presents a woman entirely empowered by her own beauty.  With kicks so high, slick and fast they could slice through anything, and matched with a voice so stunningly seductive you are held in a mesmerised trance of admiration, Zizi Strallen cements her renowned triple threat status by equally giving us a passionate and infuriated Carla in her scenes with Guido.  As his mistress, excited to announce her own divorce meaning she is a step closer to being with Guido, she expertly reveals the real, imperfect, and delicate woman behind Carla’s bold, brass perfected image.  Zizi’s performance makes a powerful statement.

Danielle Steers explodes onto the stage as Sarraghina, the intoxicating and mysterious prostitute Guido encountered as a child on a beach, a woman who taught him about love through the passionate and empowering song Be Italian.  What a performance.  Energetic, beguiling, with an electricity you felt through every fibre of your being.  Danielle Steers delivered perhaps the most well-known number from NINE with such rhythmic and captivating energy, that you too wanted to be Italian!  This performance was a tornado of talent that swept across the stage, leaving us all agog and wondering what we had just experienced.

Josefina Gabrielle as Guido’s Mother was tender, loving, and tragically beautiful in her complex emotions, bringing us both beautiful and difficult moments in the story.  Her performance of Nine was pivotal, giving us insight into Guido’s story.  We could see a constant battle of a mothers unconditional love against her loyalty and comradeship to women, intense and impressive acting that made a real impact. Josefina Gabrielle’s performance with young Guido, Joel Tennant, was touching and beautiful.  And what a performance that was!  A young actor who is able to go on stage with such legendary musical theatre and acting stars, and hold his own, as well as holding intimate and lengthy eye contact in some scenes, is an actor who has a huge future.  Joel Tennant not only has an incredible singing voice, he is a strong and believable actor, significantly adding to this incredible show.  Completing the main cast was Melissa James as Claudia, Guido’s muse and Amber Davies as Stephanie, Lilianes assistant.  Melissa James delivered a fabulous performance, showing us the conflicted and frustrated Claudia as she finally finds the courage to say no to the iconic Guido.  As she passionately sings about her life outside of being an actress, a life she painfully points out that Guido knows nothing about, it is a poignant reminder that it is all too easy to take people in our life for granted, without ever knowing the real them.  Amber Davies gives us a no nonsense Stephanie, and perhaps the hope of a new wave of promise and equality.  She shimmy’s her way across the stage to Guido in Folies Bergères, but perhaps by the end, it is he who needs her.

NINE The Musical In Concert is a masterpiece, an exceptional celebration of musical theatre as a true work of art.  Passionate, clever, creative, NINE showcases an extraordinary cast and an exemplary creative team, all of whom have clearly worked in synchronised harmony with collaborative respect for each other.  With the staged concert having such a short rehearsal schedule, Joseph Houston and Willliam Whelton have possibled the impossible!  With everything they turn their hands to, my administration grows, and they are an inspiration to anyone who ever had a dream.  The happiest of ninth birthdays to Hope Mill Theatre. May you continue to shine, and may your legacy continue.

WE SCORE NINE...



NINE is on at Lowry, Salford for one more concert on Sun 2 Feb at 2.30pm


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