It is 25 years ago to the night since
Abba won the Eurovision song contest and it is part of the
cheekiness of Mamma Mia! that Waterloo is the one song you
keep expecting to hear but never do. Practically every other
Abba hit is here. And like the songs, the evening is catchy,
enjoyable, melodic but overall a bit bland... Part of the
fun is in guessing in which order the songs will pop up
and in admiring the ingenuity of the book's author, Catherine
Johnson, in bending the scenario to the lyrics, although
even she seems flummoxed by what to do with Supertrooper
and Dancing Queen. It's an immensely good-humoured affair
with the feelgood factor of a brief Greek island holiday,
and its greatest strength is in sending up its own naffness.
"Why have they all turned up? It's like some horrible
trick of fate,' observes Siobhan McCarthy's Donna on the
arrival of her former lovers. 'It's very Greek,' replies
her friend Rosie. It's pretty good too on the hairdrier-
and hairbrush-as-microphone joke. But it is far naffer than
it thinks it is, and although Phyllida Lloyd's production
and Mark Thompson's design provide value-added class, they
are slightly at odds with the emotional tug of the piece,
which is more seventies disco than nineties cool and which
often mistakes the emotional pull of melody for the real
thing. It is a rare moment when situation, music and lyric
come together..." The Guardian
"...This is no throwback concert or
weak-kneed compilation. The lovely surprise of a thoroughly
enjoyable new musical with two dozen old Abba songs is a
proper story which exploits the jangling, nostalgic score
to great effect... The songs of Benny Andersson and Bjorn
Ulvaeus are linked to dramatic scenes and encounters neatly
devised by the playwright Catherine Johnson. Phyllida Lloyd's
production is far happier than previous attempts to hijack
the pop music of, say, the Kinks, or even Madness, to the
musical stage. Much as I quite like Abba's carefully-crafted,
anthemic songs - I've discoed bravely to Dancing Queen in
my time, like the rest of you - they do have a branded,
poppy sameness about them. But we can now relish their calculated
melody, up-front beat and surging tingle factor... Miss
McCarthy sings her heart out and brings amazing expressive
range to the lyrics. A comparatively unknown song such as
Slipping Through My Fingers becomes a poignant mother and
daughter duet. The time is today, with a shadow of the past
flitting across designer Mark Thompson's white Greek walls
and deep blue sky, where a fishing boat named Waterloo lurks
nearby. Lisa Stokke and Andrew Langtree are fresh and delightful
as the kids on the brink. The nostalgia factor rises in
Anthony van Laast's Mediterranean jive choreography. And
watch out for Jenny Galloway and Louise Plowright as Donna's
old friends from the rock era. Those girls not only mean
business. They deliver it, no messing." The
Daily Mail
"...What makes the musical - a tacky
but ridiculously enjoyable wallow in some of the most mind-bending
songs ever recorded - is the cheek with which each number
is cued up. An actor only has to say: "Here I go again"
or: "I don't want to talk" and the whole cast
is off on yet another Number One record, the audience whooping
with recognition even before the orchestra kicks in... Mostly
this is camp tosh with terrible jokes... The songs never
stop and Catherine Johnson's book linking them up is quite
shameless. Still, it works and Abba fans will go berserk
for it. So take a chance on me and go for a laugh."
The Express
"Thank you for the musical. Mamma Mia!
is heaven for Abba fans and a bit of fun for everyone...
The show does not pretend to be anything other than a collection
of the Swedish super group's old hits. A wedding on a Greek
island for a girl who was the product of a holiday romance
provides the backdrop. But it is just a flimsy excuse to
sing together a selection of songs that topped the charts
back in the 70s... Every corny cue for a song was greeted
by cheers and applause... The blushing bride to be, who
sets out to find which of her mother's three former lovers
is her dad, is sweetly played by Lisa Stokke. Siobhan McCarthy
is wonderful as her feisty mum and comes close to stopping
the show belting out Winner Takes It All. It is funny and
feel-good and keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek. The
hits come thick and fast and no frills are necessary...
Thank you for the music. Thank you for the musical..."
The Mirror
"Even between consenting adults, there
are certain predilections to which one does not lightly
confess. In my case, a fondness for Shirley Temple's movies
is one such. Now it is joined - herewith vanishes my social
life - by the fact that I actually enjoyed Mamma Mia!, the
new musical based on the Abba songs of the 1970s. People
have been ostracised for less, and many of my heretofore
dearest friends will cast stones at me. Still, the charm
of Mamma Mia! is not inconsiderable. Not least the music,
which has an effusive innocence and open-hearted exuberance
almost extinct in the modern musical. Real pop music of
this sort is so much more appealing, so much less pretentious,
so much more suitable for infectious theatrical entertainment
than the tawdry bombast of most Lloyd Webber and all Boublil-Schonberg.
Abba's music (music and lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn
Ulvaeus) has certainly been overrated; but - and I speak
as one who turned away from pop music in my early teens
in 1970 - Mamma Mia! proves that Abba have been underrated,
too. Songs like "Dancing Queen" and "Just
One Look" burst upon your senses, sweet and instantly
sensational. The show's makers ironise about these Abba
songs right, left and centre. Every other time a character
starts to sing one of the famous numbers, the timing is
so shameless that the audience chortles. But not for long.
Even when the staging goes deliberately retro and evokes
Abba's old costumes and makes a Big Number out of something
like (say) "Super Trouper", something big and
simple rises through the thick fabric of the music and transcends
the archness and campness of the situation... Part of the
fun turns out to be the sheer suspense of finding how on
earth 22 Abba songs can fit into all this; but nine out
of 10 do. Catherine Johnson has given the story just enough
emotional depth and dramatic variety to hold the attention,
and just enough transparency to suit the songs. And, yes,
irony. Admittedly, the most exuberant occur in Act One;
and Act Two ends very low-key. But then, like Saturday Night
Fever, when the plot is over, the show enters its own 1970s
pop nirvana and explodes into one hit reprise after another...
As for the staging, its best features are Mark Thompson's
simple and flexible sets, and the central performance of
Siobhán McCarthy as Donna, bringing the same ardent
naturalness to both singing and her role... Phyllida Lloyd
and her choreographer, Anthony van Laast, elicit generally
good performances all round. Jenny Galloway and Louise Plowright
make much of their roles as Donna's old girlfriends. You
shouldn't take Mamma Mia! seriously: which is precisely
why it proves to be one of the few good musicals on the
London stage today." The Financial Times
"...By the standards, though,
of those K-Tel compilation West End musicals, Catherine
Johnson's book does a nifty integration job with an original
plot involving a young girl on the verge of mat marriage
and her relationship with her mother when she discovers
that any one of three men could have fathered her. The real
drama, however, is less between the characters on stage
than between the audience of fans and the music. A defiantly
camp note is struck from the opening announcement: "We'd
like to warn people of a nervous disposition that platform
boots and white Lycra will be worn in this production."
The show proceeds as though the fans have generously donated
the songs to it for the evening and will sit there ready
to exult at each deliriously outrageous way the makers engineer
the next opportunity for a ditty... The island setting allows
for camp underwater dream sequences of a Jacques Cousteau-
meets- Esther Williams variety. But there are also moments
of heartfelt feeling as when McCarthy helps the daughter
dress for her nuptials and sings, in pulsing voice, "Slipping
Through My Fingers", here a lovely lament for the way
one's children continually elude one until they finally
leave. Phyllida Lloyd's handsome production generates a
terrific mood of airborne silliness and the songs, a curious
mix of the buoyant and the haunting, are genuine golden
oldies. Abba is pop's pithiest palindrome and, whichever
way you read it, Mamma Mia! looks like being a hit."
The Independent
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