|  ABBA founding member Björn Ulvaeus is one of the producers of this £3 million production. The show takes 27 ABBA songs including Dancing Queen, Take A Chance On Me, Knowing Me Knowing You and Money Money Money and molds them into a story about a mother and daughter preparing for the daughter's wedding.
Musical with music and lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus; directed by Phyllida Lloyd with choreography by Anthony van Laast and production designs by Mark Thompson. Book by Catherine Johnson.
Björn said: "This idea has been talked about for several years but it was only when I was with my wife and kids at the West End production of Grease that it struck me we could do it. I thought that if we could make it like that, with a proper story where the songs come into the story naturally, it could be family entertainment. There is so little of that and I thought it would be a wonderful idea to do it."
He added: "Those lyrics of ours were always about relationships and they were little stories within themselves. Twenty five years ago I didn't have a clue anything like this would happen and I didn't even like musicals. We only did Eurovision because it was the only way for a Swedish group with ambitions to get heard outside Sweden. We were not a typical Eurovision group but we had to use that vehicle."
What the experts say…
“The plot is as skimpy as some of the bikinis sported by the lithe young women of the chorus, but ingenuous nonetheless. Catherine Johnson's book manages to tailor a reasonably coherent story around ABBA's collection of greatest hits. No fewer than 27 songs (minus the Eurovision winning “Waterloo” which is conspicuous by its absence) are incorporated into the action, in often quite surprising ways. “Chiquitita”, for instance, is sung to Donna by her old bandmembers as she weeps over the re-appearance of her past lovers while potential dad Sam (Hilton McRae) explains the complications of divorce to Sophie with “Knowing Me, Knowing You”.
All in all, though, the most memorable part of the evening is the score. Who knew that these dance floor favourites would adapt so well to the stage. But oh - they do, they do, they do, they do, they do. Go ahead - I'm sorry I can't help myself - take a chance on it.
It is 25 years ago 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 feel-good 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 hairdryer - 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
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 admission. 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 hitherto 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 Trooper”, 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 27 ABBA songs can fit into all this; but nine out of ten 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
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