{"id":657060,"date":"2026-06-25T06:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657060\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T06:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:40:08","slug":"sinatra-the-musical-review-life-of-a-legend-brims-with-hits-but-never-gets-under-his-skin-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657060\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinatra: The Musical review \u2013 life of a legend brims with hits but never gets under his skin | Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ol\u2019 Blue Eyes is back: first staged in Birmingham three years ago and workshopped since, this Frank Sinatra<\/a> bio-musical has now hit the West End with big band energy. Its intriguing premise is the star\u2019s nadir, those messy years in the late 40s and early 50s when it seemed like an extraordinary talent might come to a wasteful, tragic end.<\/p>\n

The Guardian\u2019s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.\u00a0Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We begin at the Paramount theatre, when our heart-throb has everything going for him: screaming fans, a devoted spaghetti-cooking spouse, a movie about sailors with Gene Kelly that\u2019s going to deal with the pesky accusations of draft-dodging. In the lead, Joel Harper-Jackson marries smooth vocal power to Sinatra\u2019s signature swagger \u2013 the head wobble, the corner-of-the-mouth smirk. Our hero\u2019s weakness for women is played as a comically charming character quirk, with a bed-hopping rendition of Come Fly With Me involving Lana Turner, Judy Garland<\/a> and Marlene Dietrich.<\/p>\n

When Sinatra meets Ava Gardner in Palm Springs, he soon has her under his skin and it\u2019s the beginning of the end for his marriage to Nancy (Phoebe Panaretos). But while Ana Villafa\u00f1e captures Gardner\u2019s bombshell power, and there\u2019s no lack of passion in the musical numbers, Joe DiPietro\u2019s book never spirits up the true tumult of this legendary affair. This is a couple whose first date allegedly ended in drunken gunplay, but the febrile nature of their relationship is here limited to a ceremonious smashing of whisky glasses in a grate.<\/p>\n

Bed-hopping renditions \u2026 Harper-Jackson with Becky Anderson as Lana Turner. Photograph: Tristram Kenton\/the Guardian<\/p>\n

Sinatra\u2019s producer daughter Tina, who helped shape the story, wanted her father to be better understood. But a reluctance to embrace too much darkness lends a sense that things just happen to our hero. It\u2019s at odds with the comeback narrative and the stubbornness we\u2019re told he\u2019s inherited from his Italian mother \u2013 Jenna Russell<\/a>, who can steal a scene with just a single line delivered on a telephone.<\/p>\n

We do get some colouring in on Sinatra\u2019s progressive values, and the sense of anti-immigrant discrimination that drove him, but the script often feels less three-dimensional than the video-assisted set design. Happily, Kathleen Marshall\u2019s production, complete with a fine ensemble and some joyful choreography, doesn\u2019t stint on the big hits \u2013 on opening night you could literally hear the audience swoon.<\/p>\n

At Aldwych theatre, London<\/a>, until 10 April<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ol\u2019 Blue Eyes is back: first staged in Birmingham three years ago and workshopped since, this Frank Sinatra…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-657060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}