Legally Blonde

What a fabulous, feel good show!  Legally Blonde is the story of Elle Woods and her rise to academic and legal success as she follows her heart.  Set in America, Elle is a Delta Nu sorority girl who spends her time shopping, reading Vogue and being stunningly beautiful.  When her boyfriend, Warner, drops her for someone more ‘serious’ she applies herself and to the surprise of everyone achieves a place at Harvard Law School.  Through hard work and with the support of Emmet, assistant law tutor, she cracks a major case and becomes a success story.  This isn’t quite a rags to riches tale as Elle’s wealthy parents already live in Malibu, but it does demonstrate that hard work and good friends can get you anywhere – regardless of your hair colour or anyone’s preconceived views.

Director, Dee Bennie-Marshall, did an amazing job of bringing together a stellar cast to entertain with this great song and dance production.  Elle Woods was confidently played by Kirsty Taylor who not only looked the part, but had the audience believing she WAS Elle.  Excellently supported by all the sorority girls their enthusiasm for what they thought would be the impending nuptials with Warner was tangible.  The roles of Margot, Pilar and Serena were taken by Ciara Stothard, Millie Ducker and Amelia Depledge who all had great energy and show much promise for the future.  Ben Loy played the conceited Warner – I particularly enjoyed his duet ‘Serious’ with Taylor.

At Harvard Elle meets her new classmates Vivien (Katie Eyre), Enid (Frankie Riley), Schultz (Dan Fenwick) and Padamadan (Jack Lockley) all confidently played and characterised.  The role of sexiest course Professor, Callahan, was taken by Ashley Booker who was hilariously wicked, entitled and arrogant in equal measure.  Relative new comer to the stage Sam Clarkson was a convincing Emmet, who supports Elle while developing his own confidence to take on Callaghan.  Clarkson held his own amongst the many experienced performers in RMTC and was a sensitive, yet passionate Emmet.

Grace English gave a very impressive interpretation of Paulette, instead of playing the role just for laughs I felt she brought real depth to the character whilst still capturing all the humour of the hairdresser who befriends Elle.  Her solo number ‘Ireland’ was one of the highlights of the show for me and her interaction with the Sam Lewis as Kyle the somewhat ‘fit’ UPS delivery man was full of innuendo.  The supporting roles were also played to full effect and all the cast should be congratulated on their word perfect delivery.

Matthew Symonds, MD, had worked with the cast to give some powerful renditions of the songs.  I felt stand out numbers were ‘Blood in the Water’ and the hilarious ‘Gay or European’, both of which were integral to telling the story and were brilliantly pulled off by this stand-out cast.  All of the production numbers were full on, high energy and wonderfully lively, none more so than ‘Whipped Into Shape’ which was led by Chloe Jackson as Brooke and saw the company skip their way through this number.  Jackson’s ability to sing whilst performing such energetic routines never ceases to amaze.   Supported by a talented group of dancers and ensemble there were no weak spots in the production. 

The costumes worked perfectly and the set was deftly moved around the stage by the crew who ensured swift changing of the scenes to maintain the excellent pace of this production.  It would be re-miss of me not to mention the excellent contribution of the four legged entertainers; Nellie, Freddie and Gus who were a credit to their trainers and the Production Team who must have worked patiently with them to get them to perform so well.

Don’t miss the opportunity to see this show if you have or can get tickets for the weekend.

Congratulations to everyone involved – a wonderful evening’s entertainment.

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