On Your Feet! review, London Coliseum: you should sidestep this disposable Gloria Estefan musical
You might think that a jukebox musical based on the life and back-catalogue of Cuban-American chart-topper Gloria Estefan would be called, simply, Gloria!
But the first of many missteps of this colourful, loud, brash, disposable cash-in show – which did a respectable but not head-turning two-year stint on Broadway in 2015 – is to lure the public in with a title that re-defines anodyne.
It’s telling, in its way. Estefan, 61, recently told a journalist that the guy hired to write the book, joining the dots of 20 or so hits, Alexander Dinelaris, pointed out an obvious stumbling-block. Estefan (nee Fajardo) has long been happily married to her first love – and her producer – Emilio. Apparently the couple haven’t argued in more than 40 years. “There’s no conflict,” Dinelaris (whose credits include the book for the musical spin-off to The Bodyguard) protested.
Estefan did, it’s true, have a life-threatening accident in 1990, when her tour-bus collided with a truck in a snowstorm, leaving her with a fractured spine. It required a slow recovery to, well, get back on her feet. Combine that struggle with the usual slog to get established – the show accentuating the way in which her mother, thwarted in her own aspirations, was a resentful obstacle – and the title makes some kind of biographical sense. But above all, it’s there to serve as a feelgood invitation: before the night is up, you’ll be grooving in the aisles, etc.
Had the show – directed by Jerry Mitchell – been mounted in a dance-friendly, hang out and slurp mojitos kind of venue, it might succeed in spicing up the audience’s summer with the infectious rhythms of Estefan’s pop-Latin fusions. But incongruously residing at the home of the English National Opera, with the cast bopping and twisting up on stage at a safe remove, it’s toe-curling even before we get to the first-half climax and an attempted mass conga in the stalls.
To her credit, Christie Prades as Gloria E has the strong singing voice, facial resemblance, determined smile and air of inner strength that rings true enough. And George Ioannides oozes kindly-hunky male charm as Emilio, encouraging her, recruiting her to his band, Miami Sound Machine. The group's distinctive (because stuttery) yet bland (because disco-y) English language breakthrough hit of 1984, Dr Beat, gets an inevitable spin here.
The interesting elements of her story – early escape from Cuba during the Revolution, her father’s bed-ridden illness following the Vietnam War – are given curiously cursory treatment; the scepticism and reluctant conversion of record industry types is, however, boringly foregrounded. The dialogue operates at the mechanical level of “You’re going to be a big star” and all the skirt-flapping and synchronised dance-moves in the world can’t hide the flat-footed nature of the beast. Just because a singer has won Grammy awards, sold millions, and banked up fans, doesn’t mean she’s a shoo-in for theatrical treatment. With original competition elsewhere, not least from Lloyd Webber (there are big revivals of Joseph, Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar) this is one to sidestep.
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