Paul T Davies reviews We’ve Got Each Other performed as part of the Pulse Festival at the New Wolsey Theatre
We’ve Got Each Other.
Pulse Festival at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich.
9 June 2018
4 Stars
Pulse Festival Information
Paul O’Donnell reveals to us the latest smash hit juke box musical, We’ve Got Each Other, featuring the music of Bon Jovi. While traditionally musicals have a large cast, huge stage designs, a live band or orchestra, this is the Pulse Festival. There is no money and it has to be performed in an hour. Thus O’Donnell engages our imaginations and over a hundred lighting cues, and the occasional smoke machine, to bring us the next Olivier award winning musical, based on the hits of Bon Jovi. Well, just the one hit. But it is the one that you will know!
O’Donnell is a warm and engaging performer, and he has created an affectionate and recognisable pastiche of musical theatre and its clichés. Cod Spanish accents and the New York setting tell the doomed love story of Tommy and Gina, and, of course, the Dockers have Cockney accents because, as is the musical theatre rule, all working class characters in musicals have Cockney accents, even in Les Miserables. Having to skip many scenes of his musical to fit it into the time scale, O’Connell also has to perform the climactic gang fight, and here he more than proves himself as a triple threat, wonderful, funny and skilled choreography!
It’s a joyous celebration of the art form, and I loved the different genres of Living On A Prayer that he presented. The show, the last one of this year’s Pulse, left me with smile on my face and a light heart, celebrating theatre itself. One of the best hours of musical theatre, (in our mind), that you will spend!
