Crazy For You

Crazy For You

This was one of those shows that makes you wish your life was a musical... where people you've never met spontaneously join in with your even more spontaneous dance routine in the middle of a sunlit street, where you wear your tap dancing shoes where ever you go, where heartthrobbingly beautiful and chiseled men serenade you and where you know everything will turn out just fine because, lets face it, you're in a musical!

If only eh?

Crazy for You does take you into this dream world... the Gershwin music fest involved one of the most enchanting renditions of Embraceable You that I've ever heard and the most spectacular drunk dance routine - fair enough the only one I've seen, especially one in a small Cowboy town's saloon... but pretty special all the same. The interchangeable set was a bit of genius and I hope that Peter Mckintosh uses it in his pick up lines... Of course the tap dancing routines were insane but the choreography smoothly running next to his moving and revolving set was just as, if not more, impressive and I hope Susan Stroman is proud, even if she does have an incredible wealth of projects to be proud of already.

The performances were genuine and powerful despite the first night (on the West End) nerves that any mentally sound person would have. The cowboys were eye pleasing as I'm sure the chorus girls were to the men in the crowd... saying that, I'll be honest, there wasn't an overload of women hungry men in the crowd... I wouldn't lie to you dear readers. Sean Palmer played Bobby Child with a Gene Kelly charm and a cuteness akin to that boyfriend most girls have had where they know they'd be useless in a fight but love them anyway and Clare Foster embraced Polly Baker as the tomboy-ish (but still manlier than most of the audience) cow girl with a sweetly beautiful soprano and a slightly faltering accent. 

I must say though, the first half much outweighed the second... To say it was a disappointment though is unfair, the dance routines were entertaining, the music energetic... It just felt like someone had written the first half of an essay weeks ago, was very happy with it and knew it would go down a storm and then has come back to the second half, the night before the deadline, resulting in a half-hearted, stretched out version of the notes. Basically it was lacking, perhaps the writers thought they had better wrap things up and get the audience on their way. I hope not.

Having said that, they were probably one of those annoying bastards who rushed it and still got a first.

Crazy for You was lovely and deserves all the five stars it can get. Here's another one.