Sinatra: The Musical review – the legend’s life brims with hits but never gets under his skin | Theater

Ohl’ Blue Eyes is back: it started in Birmingham three years ago and has been talking ever since. Frank Sinatra The bio-musical has now arrived in the West End with the power of a large group. What makes it interesting is the star’s nadir, the confusing years of the 40s and early 50s when it seemed like a wonderful talent could come to a destructive, tragic end.

We start at the Paramount theater, where our heartbeat has everything going for it: screaming fans, a devoted spaghetti cook, a movie about sailors and Gene Kelly about to fight a false accusation. In the lead, Joel Harper-Jackson marries the sonic power of Sinatra’s signature swagger – a head-bobbing, corner-of-the-mouth grin. Our hero’s weakness for women is played up as a very interesting character, with the bed-hopping song Come Fly With Me featuring Lana Turner, Judy Garland and Marlene Dietrich.

When Sinatra meets Ava Gardner in Palm Springs, he soon has her under his skin and it is the beginning of the end of his marriage to Nancy (Phoebe Panaretos). But while Ana Villafañe steals Gardner’s bombastic power, and there’s no shortage of musical flair, Joe DiPietro’s book doesn’t quite set the tone for this fictional story. This is a couple whose first date ended with guns drunk, but the danger of their relationship now is limited to the ritualistic smashing of whiskey glasses in the cupboard.

Sinatra’s daughter, Tina, who helped organize the story, wanted her father to understand better. But the refusal to embrace so much darkness suggests that things just happen to our hero. It contradicts the story of the comeback and the stubbornness we are told he inherited from his Italian mother – Jenna Russellwho can steal events with only one line provided on the telephone.

We get some color on Sinatra’s progressive culture, and the anti-immigrant sentiments that inspired him, but the writing is often less nuanced than the film makes. Happily, Kathleen Marshall’s production, complete with a fine ensemble and lively music, doesn’t go beyond the big hits – the opening night could hear the audience swooning.