The Wedding Singer

I had the pleasure of returning to The Bradford Playhouse last night to see The Bradford Player’s musical treat ‘The Wedding Singer’.  Based on the 1998 film of the same name, starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, this musical tells a simple love story of it’s two main characters, Julia and Robbie, amongst the backdrop of crimped hair, leotards and day-glow colours.

The show was directed and choreographed by Jessica Sweeney who was assisted by Kat McEachran.  Overall, the directing was good and made great use of space on stage with a static and minimalistic set enabling the show to keep pace, have slick set changes allowing the audience to stay focused on the show. The choreography was suitably camp and helped add to the comedy but well disciplined. I thought that the group of dancers were outstanding and worked well together throughout the show! 

The bedroom scenes and other intimate scenes were well placed in terms of staging, set and lighting. The cast was made up of well-rounded and believable characters and there was certainly plenty of light and shade amongst Julia and Robbie and the right amount of campery from the rest of the cast including, of course, the character of George.  Some of the strengths lie in the whole cast/chorus numbers, every actor on stage told a story. Visually, with the costumes etc, this show was great and there was the right amount of storytelling to combine with the comedy.

The musical director for this production was Ken Gilroy.  Ken chose to use backing tracks instead of a band which I feel that this was a good choice as the three wedding singers are supposed to be the band, therefore it would’ve been a little obvious that the band were playing in the pit. This also helped with the sound which was well balanced and at times given the style and genre of the production could have been a little louder. At times live music was used on stage which I thought was a good choice for the scenes when done.

Costumes were well put together my only criticism would be to try and ensure that at times the ensemble needed to be more co-ordinated to give that finished polished look. For example, in the Wall Street Office scene the ensemble seemed to be in a mis match of shirts, braces and colour and would have been more effective if they had all been the same. However, it was impressive that the company managed to make and source a lot of their own costumes. The costumes in the Las Vegas scene were particularly impressive.

The lighting and the design was overall good but at times the cast were in darkness and I felt the audience missed some of the great characterisation being played on stage.

Beth Brewer played the female leading role of the main love interest – Julia.  I thought that Beth did very well and was well cast in the role. She sang beautifully and has a lovely tone to her voice. Beth is a good actress through song and did a good job storytelling whenever she sang and worked very well opposite Gavin Birrell who played the other half of the love interest, Robbie.  I really enjoyed Gavin’s performance and he has a lot of range.  Gavin has a great singing voice and he sang well throughout.  I really believed the connection between Gavin and Beth and thought they were well cast.

Fen Greatley- Hirsch played the role of Sammy.  I have seen Fen in several productions at the playhouse and he is a good actor and singer and well suited in the roles he has played.  In the Wedding Singer he was a well-rounded character who has very good stage presence and was also very well cast in this role – well done Fen!  Taylor Wright played the role of Holly, the happy go-lucky friend of Julia.  I liked Taylor’s connection to Fen and the character he played and thought that they made a good partnership.  Taylor is a strong performer and certainly held her own on stage. 

Joe Parkes played the role of the effeminate George – the Boy George wannabe.  Joe played the comedic side of this character brilliantly.  He had the audience laughing throughout and was brilliantly cast in the role. Lovely scene in Act two with Rosie who was played by Helen Ganney the sex mad Grandma of Robbie, the character of Rosie that is not Helen.  Anna did very well in this role and was suitably funny in all her scenes. Her and Gavin went well together with some wonderful scenes that were both hilarious and touching. I loved her version of ‘Not That Kind Of Thing’ with Dan (George).  David Ayres played the role of the baddie, Glen.  David had great projection and stage presence.  He was well cast in the role and I like his characterisation using his body well to be physically intimidating. ‘All About The Green’ was brilliant to watch and David was a good showman.

Sophie Chellam brilliantly played the role of the crazy Linda.  Sophie was fearless and commanded the stage.  Although the part is relatively small, she certainly made sure that she used every second of time that she was onstage.  Her rendition of ‘A Note From Linda’ was one of the powerful numbers of the show and communicated it well in contrasting styles to the audience for me – well done Sophie.

There are FAR too many others in the cast to mention in this review.  With a big cast everyone had their role to play.  Whether it was a cameo role (I loved Elvis) or a dancer – you were certainly noticed and certainly appreciated.  I thought that the character work and storytelling from the background cast was fantastic – you were fab to watch! The dancers were excellent and visually captivating too.  I loved the men’s version of ‘Single’ – hilarious!  I also loved the ‘Finale’ – brilliantly danced and sung which I wanted to go on longer.  Well done to The Bradford Players for another great show.  It certainly deserves a far bigger audience than was there tonight!  Thanks once again for your hospitality.

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