Sleepless: A Musical Romance review, Troubadour Wembley Park: more pleasure than one dared hope for
In normal times (remember them?), this ambitious and highly accomplished new musical version of the hit 1993 rom-com Sleepless in Seattle would be something to write home about. Given that it’s opening a mere fortnight or so since the government finally allowed theatre performances to resume with socially distanced audiences, it’s something to tell the world about.
There were moments watching Sleepless, whose timely message is to seize the day and go for it, when I had to pinch myself to check I wasn’t dreaming. For all the sparseness in the auditorium (a 1,200 capacity has been curtailed to about 400), the plenitude of what’s happening on stage is a source of disbelief: a sophisticated set accommodating a 12-strong orchestra; no discernible, off-putting distancing between the large singing, sometimes dancing cast. How is this possible? I didn’t think we’d see work of this order until sometime after Christmas, if not way into the New Year.
It’s imperative to salute the players, chief among them former Girls Aloud singer Kimberley Walsh and Jay McGuiness, of boyband The Wanted. The pair are stepping into the hard-to-fill shoes of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks as Annie and Sam, a ‘destined-to-meet’ couple separated by widower’s grief on his side, a pending (unsuitable) marriage on hers and a heap of US land-mass in-between. Their unlikely and long deferred liaison is spurred by Sam’s heart-on-sleeve chat with a radio agony aunt that Annie, a Baltimore journo, tunes into and get transfixed by, resolving to track ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ down.
The happy ending for the project itself is no less the stuff of fairy tales. I feel compelled here to proclaim the valiance of the producers – especially Brits Michael Rose and Damien Sanders – who have persisted, with the tenacity of mountaineers dangling over a crevasse, after Covid killed off their planned March opening. They also paying through the nose for a raft of measures, not least ensuring the company and crew are Covid-tested every day (which allows for near-normalcy on stage). But just as passion throws calculation out of the window, so here, the romantic gesture is the thing: rekindling everyone’s love for live performance and showing what’s possible if you put your mind to it.
Like the film, this show (composed by an Ayshire miner’s son, Robert Scott, with lyrics by another Brit, Brendan Cull and book by the US-born Michael Burdette), transports us to almost halcyon early Nineties America, one untainted by antifa riots and Tinder. Musically, the style harks further back, offering a jazzy-brassy old Broadway sound. Summoning shades of Sondheim and Cole Porter, it unpacks the stakes for the characters at each turn, expressing yearning while keeping the balance light and comic.
Walsh and McGuiness have their share of big numbers, lustily sung – though a composed and beaming Walsh lacks the surplus naivety and suppressed panic that made Ryan sparkle. And though McGuiness, less twinklingly reticent than Hanks, suffers in the screen to stage comparison, he convinces as a struggling dad and overgrown little boy lost – prodded into dating by his son (an impishly energetic Jobe Hart at the performance I caught).
Any niggles feel superfluous though. Does Sleepless deliver more pleasure than one could have dared hope for? It does. Anyone who has missed theatre sorely will be left tossing and turning with excitement at what this spells for the sector going, finally, forward. Bravo.
Until Sept 27. Tickets: tickets.telegraph.co.uk
