If you’d asked me halfway through how good I thought this was, I’d have said it was on its way to being my favourite musical, but sweet damn… why do so many musicals insist on being so infernally long? As charmed as I was by Robert Preston’s conman and Shirley Jones’ “sadder but wiser girl”, by the time the first two hours had passed I was fairly worn out.
Still, I thought ‘Ya Got Trouble’ was pretty tremendous and Preston’s performance is probably only second to Streisand’s in Funny Girl as my favourite in a musical.
Very good, but not without the inevitable fat that comes with the genre.
Grade: ****
