Reader Reviews
The Drowsy Chaperone (Novello Theatre (formerly the Strand), West End)
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 | Went to see this tonight on a whim as I was in London and wanted to see a show, and I was SO glad I got the chance to see this before it closed... I hadn't laughed so much in ages!!! It's a completely zany mix of spoof musical, slapstick comedy and narrative with some really stand-out performances thrown in for good measure - most notably Steve Pemberton as man-in-chair, Summer Strallen as Janet, Selina Chilton as Kitty, Nickolas Grace as Underling and of course Elaine Paige who really did herself justice in the title role!! I found the show to be an absolutely hilarious way to spend an evening, and I'm just sorry I won't get the chance to repeat the experience during this run. - JD | 02 Aug 07 |
| Steve Pemberton is so good -he made me laugh and cry and the show would have probably fared better had he openened in the part of the man in the chair.Elaine Paige ,Summer Strallen, and the beautiful and funny actress who played Kitty(sorry I can't remember her name but she was equally beautiful and funny as Dulcie in last seasons production of The Boy Friend at the Open Air Theatre-we will be hearing and seeing her a lot more in the future.)WERE ALL SENSATIONAL! The Men were strong also and it is a crying shame that this producyion is going to close so soon. When I saw it on July 24th the house was full and in a state of BLISS. - Robert | 30 Jul 07 |
| Such a shame this is closing early. Steve Pemberton is wonderfully charismatic and engaging and the whole show is tremendous fun. Elaine Paige is the weak link with a gurning, charmless performance exposing her lack of comic ability, especially in when compared to Joseph Alessi's hysterical turn as Adolpho. - Sally | 26 Jul 07 |
| Saw this last night and wasn't very impressed. The cast all tried hard, but the material is just boring. Steve Pemberton was good as the man in the chair as was John Partridge. t just seemed to lack something and I'm not sure what. It also lasted a lot longer than the 90 minutes it said it was going to be in the program. 1hr 50mins is a long time in the theatre without a break. - Steve | 23 Jul 07 |
| Re-visited the Drowsy Chaperone on Saturday afternoon on a special offer ticket and recommend everyone to see this while there is still a chance. A great fun show with a great cast that is closing far to early. - ILS | 23 Jul 07 |
| What an absolute joy. So sorry to see this is closing shortly - it is clever, witty, fun and just so original. From the earlier reviews, it was clear that Steve Pemberton would have a tough task in replacing Bob Martin, but he is superb - warm, engaging, and wry. Cast is universally excellent - great tap dancing! Elaine Paige sends herself up beautifully. Just a magical night out. See it while you can.... (Sorry if this sounds like a plug.) - Al | 16 Jul 07 |
| a great night of fun what more do you want form the westend a great ensemble piece elaine paige great for sending herself up but not really the star bob martin is fab as man in the chail keeps it all flowing nicely great set and costumes deserves a good run would have got 5 stars with better songs and a big number from miss paige but a great night out . gossip is lorna luft may take over when miss paige leave how fab ! - rob grady | 06 Jul 07 |
| There's nothing new about a parody or pastiche of 20's musicals, as The Open Air Theatre has proved with their production of The Boyfriend. The stroke of genius that sets The Drowsy Chaperone apart is Bob Martin as The Man in the Chair whose brilliantly sardonic but affectionate commentary superbly points out the frivolity of what passes for a plot. He also provides hilarious portraits of the characters and actors and all credit to Elaine Paige for allowing herself to be sent up (the beginning of "Act 2" is inspired) and also for providing an object lesson in how to upstage the star. There are also show stopping performances from Summer Strallen and Joseph Alessi and even John Partridge who I have always detested for ruining Miss Saigon. The guys at Dress Circle have been raving about this for weeks and it's easy to see why as it's the campest show in town but it's irresistable fun and made great by Bob Martin. Only 4 stars though because the songs are not a patch on the shows of that period and because 100 minutes is more than enough in the Novello's disgracefully uncomfortable seats. - David Baxter | 29 Jun 07 |
| If you still have your sense of humour and want a night out with hearty laughs then this is for you. Absolutely adored it! All power to Adolpho! - Steve | 28 Jun 07 |
| Enormous fun. Great cast, beautiful theatre, wonderful show. Went with an American friend & we both loved it. Looking forward to seeing it again. - Rose Gordon | 19 Jun 07 |
| Enormous fun. Great cast, beautiful theatre, wonderful show. Went with an American friend & we both loved it. Looking forward to seeing it again. - Rose Gordon | 19 Jun 07 |
| Enormous fun. Great cast, beautiful theatre, wonderful show. Went with an American friend & we both loved it. Looking forward to seeing it again. - Rose Gordon | 19 Jun 07 |
| Superb! The unlikely sounding Bob Martin has successfully transferred his NYC bed-sit across the pond, and found it a new home in London. He has, for some reason, changed a few of the referrences in the early dialogue from the NY show, a pity as I seem to remember him kncoking Mr Loydd-Webber. Only his reference to Elton John, and that would have been for the dire Le Stat, not Billy Elliot remains. Summer (what a great name!) Strallen, supremely confident in the part, was stunning. What a talent that girl has! Even Ms Paige mangaed to make me smile, which was a surprise. All in all a great fun night out at the theatre, and you don't have to be a show queen to enjoy it either! Well done Bob! - rds | 17 Jun 07 |
| A great show. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Bob Martin was excellent as 'man in chair' A fun night out. I shall definately be going to see it again! - kevin | 14 Jun 07 |
| Ignore the Guardian review (which is just Billington showing off his 1920s/1930s knowledge) and grab a ticket for this excellent show. The original structure and fast pace keep it going and the cast are a true ensemble. Highly enjoyable, with enough amusing twists and song parodies for a great night out! - DGR | 13 Jun 07 |
| saw the show tonight. Absolutely delightful and very funny. Bob Martin was superb. Loved every minute of it. - David | 12 Jun 07 |
| A highly entertaining show, very funny, very entertaining. Elaine Page is superb but so is every member of the cast. If you want to come out of a theatre happy this is the show for you - Chris Hill | 12 Jun 07 |
| A highly entertaining show, very funny, very entertaining. Elaine Page is superb but so is every member of the cast. If you want to come out of a theatre happy this is the show for you - Chris Hill | 12 Jun 07 |
| Mr Johnny Fox politely points out that the Guardian, Independent and our own Michael Coveney agreed with him. But, as so often, you read it here first !!! - JohnnyFox's agent | 12 Jun 07 |
| A highly entertaining show, very funny, very entertaining. Elaine Page is superb but so is every member of the cast. If you want to come out of a theatre happy this is the show for you - Chris Hill | 12 Jun 07 |
| Well i have to say i'm staggered at some of the reviews on here! I dont usually write these but Mr Johnny Fox who saw The Drowsy Chaperone on 1st June must have seen a completely different show to me! I consider myself an average theatre-goer in London and have seen all the major musicals and all I can say is that this has to be the funniest, most magical and ORIGINAL hour and fourty minutes i have spent in a theatre in YEARS! This show has it all in my book, it looks and sounds fantastic, has a wondeful orchestra and cast who all executed their parts with great gusto and energy. It was more of an ensemble piece really which I enjoyed, except maybe for Bob Martin's wonderful 'Man in Chair' character who takes us throught the whole show. True it is not Brecht, but I can go to the National Theatre for heavy drama! This show does what a musical should - had me beaming for days. GO SEE IT! - Mark West | 10 Jun 07 |
| Saw the Whats on Stage group outing and found it a difficult show to review. The basic idea is very clever and an interesting variation on the usual send up type musical and the performances were all excellent. However would I want to pay £50 plus to see it and does it belong in the west end rather than in a small off west end theatre, I fear not.For that reason I expect it to have a relatively short run - Richard Sandler | 08 Jun 07 |
| It has to be one of the most original fast-moving and thoroughly enjoyable musicals I have seen in the west End for a very long time. The superb multi-taelnted cast plunge themselves helter-skelter into Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison`s spry and sassy song and dance numbers and Bob Martin and Don Mc. Kellar`s hilarious quick-fire routines. Bob Martin himself presides benignly over the entire proceedings as the engaging, funny and often poignant Man In The Chair. And there is the delightful Elaine Paige herself with her delicious comedy timing and splendid sense of self-irony delivering her show-stopping number `As We Tumble Along.` on wonderful form . This show tumbles into the West End as a refreshing antitode to all the tribute musicals and tired revivals. - Stewart Permutt | 07 Jun 07 |
| just a blast from start to finish. enormous fun and even quite touching.a really good evening out! - bramble | 07 Jun 07 |
| This musical is a treat! The production number "Show Off" is a tour de force, and the false-start second act opening number send-up of "The King and I" is tremendous fun. Did I mention tap dancing, dancing on roller skates, and wonderful hoofers both young and veterans? This is an intimate show in the sense of the connection it makes with the audience, but it is by no means a small show - it even has an airplane landing on stage at the end! - Dan Lyon | 07 Jun 07 |
| This musical is a treat! The production number "Show Off" is a tour de force, and the false-start second act opening number send-up of "The King and I" is tremendous fun. Did I mention tap dancing, dancing on roller skates, and wonderful hoofers both young and veterans? This is an intimate show in the sense of the connection it makes with the audience, but it is by no means a small show - it even has an airplane landing on stage at the end! - Dan Lyon | 07 Jun 07 |
| I can see how it succeeded on Broadway, different but just as insubstantial and superficial as Avenue Q and Wicked, but I'm not sure it will succeed here. It seems to me like a good comedy sketch elongated to 90 mins and it doesn't even sustain that short length. If I'd paid £20 for a fringe version (without the West End production values) at the lovely Kings Head in Islington I might have thought it was a bit of fun. As it is, it's poor value at West End prices and like the proverbial Chinese meal, I've forgotten it already. Don't bother with this parody, wait for The Boyfriend to return to the Open Air this summer. - Gareth James | 07 Jun 07 |
| Superb show. The whole cast are great especially the narrator who I thought was the star of this musical. A grat evening out at the theatre I will go and see it again. - Ivor | 06 Jun 07 |
| I couldn't go with my gang of friends to Drowsy Chaperone on the Whatsonstage.com outing last week, so had to catch up yesterday. Everyone I know who saw it on Broadway raved about it, and the London crew were no less enthusiastic. Well, on Thursday either it had an off night, or I did. I'd had a bottle of wine and a pretty generous Mojito immediately before the show, but that ought to have put me into a receptive mood for some light comic pastiche of tinkly twinkly twenties musicals. Shouldn't it? I quickly "got" the narrative schtick of author Bob Martin as "Man in Chair" and enjoyed his asides and three-dimensional character much more than the cartoon characters paraded across the stage performing the musical numbers. Summer Strallen (and some so are not) was dental-drillingly shrill as Janet the bride, and her cheesy bridegroom was so annoying I've happily blanked him out. There was a tap-dancing best man who was like a toe-curling Tory MP in a House of Commons Christmas review, and a big broad black aviatrix whose only purpose in the show seemed to be for rhyming a finale number and testing the tensile strength of sequinned lycra. The ridiculous brokers' men routine of the gangsters-disguised-as-bakers bored me rigid, and their corny puns were feeble - was it ever explained WHY they are disguised as bakers, or what the nature of their gangsterhood is? If there was a plot, this is the point at which I lost it to a momentary doze. And who or what is the Drowsy Chaperone herself? Why, for example, is she "chaperoning" a bride on her wedding day, but not in any way preventing her from seeing the groom? Why is she "drowsy" - roughly interpreted as a narcoleptic alcoholic - and why doesn't she have a name or a personality. Of course, this is a vehicle (even tumbrils are vehicles) for Elaine Paige, in my humble opinion one of the most self-indulgent actresses on the London stage, and this part certainly ain't a stretch for the short one. No amount of vertical feathers or cantilevered millinery piled upon her head gives her the stature a commanding central role requires. Not ever a subtle interpreter of female characters, now in fact square of jaw, bejewelled of gown, curled of wig and smooth-trowelled of complexion she has finally mutated into a sort of Danny La Rue mini-me. The songs are entirely forgettable, except perhaps "I Don't Wanna Show Off No More" which Ms Paige really should have woven into a sampler and tacked to the wall of her dressing room, since she needs better material and better direction to display her mature vocal talents: in this tosh, she's just coasting. What really annoyed me about this production was how unfavourably it compared with "Curtains", which ran parallel to it on Broadway in the same genre of pastiche musical, but penned by Kander and Ebb and with the impeccable David Hyde Pierce in the central role as a stage-struck detective who solves a murder in an out-of-town theatre but also manages to "fix" the musical show at the same time. I think what's wrong with Drowsy Chaperone is that it's a spoof of a spoof. Trading so heavily on Salad Days and The Boy Friend it's trying to parody a group of musicals which were already themselves pastiches of an earlier age. It's not much of a consolation, but it was a delight to see the exhumation of Anne Rogers, a musical comedy star of great magnitude in her heyday, looking trim and singing competently as a dotty older lady. I'd last seen her on stage in No, No, Nanette at Drury Lane in the 70s wiping the floor with Anna Neagle, and it's good to see her still stealing scenes. www.blowstar.blogspot.com - JohnnyFox | 01 Jun 07 |
| This show is fantastic - the best thing I have seen in years. The whole production is first-rate! I have been 2 times and will go again! - Mark | 31 May 07 |
| This show is my new fave show in the West End it's great! It has everything a comedy musical should have (including a song about a monkey!)and all of the cast are great (it was fantastic to see Elaine Paige back on stage) I can't wait to see the show again as I am still singing the songs and laughing at the jokes. But make sure you don't over do it at the bar as there is NO interval my little monkeys! - RyKas | 29 May 07 |
| Overall the show is quite good, mostly funny but just damn irritating in places. The "Man in the Chair" is an interesting device to tell the story through but I'm not quite sure it worked. Elaine Paige is quite good, but didn't stand-out as amazing and contrary to other reviews I actually thought it was a decent sized part considering there are no real lead characters as such. I thought that Summer Strallen was probably the best with her big number. - Kevin | 25 May 07 |
| Dreadful. Looks like the Americans have just discovered pantomime, and forgotten to add jokes (of even pantomime quality). The device of Man in Chair to excuse the awfulness of the production is flimsy. The show is just plain poor. - SJ | 24 May 07 |
| RRRRRRRUSH TO BUY YOUR TICKETS BEFORE THEY SELL OUT FOR AT LEAST A YEAR. EVEN IF LIKE ME YOU'VE SEEN THOUSANDS OF MUSICALS YOU WILL NEVER HAVE EXPERIENCED SO MUCH REFRESHING FUN PACKED WITH ORIGINAL IDEAS LIKE THIS HILARIOUS OUTRAGEOUS PASTICHE. STUNNING PERFORMANCES - ONE LAPSE BY THE CASTING DIRECTOR WITH 'THE BEST MAN' TRYING TOO HARD AND FAILING, AND HIS DULL NUMBER SHOULD BE CUT IMMEDIATELY. ELAINE WORKS WELL IN A SUBSIDIARY ROLE. I AM STILL SHAKING WITH LAUGHTER.. - ALEX GREEN | 24 May 07 |
| One of the best evenings I had in theatre EVER! Brilliant concept, so clever and funny. A superb London cast-every single one of them! Bob Martin as the Man in Chair (and also co-author) is the heart of this show. A MUST SEE!!!!!!! - SP | 24 May 07 |
| A brilliant, funny, witty, gorgeous show - unlike any musical you will have seen. I saw the 2nd preview and was amazed at just how slick, fast-paced (almost too much so at times!) and energetic it was. Wholeheartedly reccommeded (but remember to pee before it starts! 1hr 40 mins and no interval!) - Kev | 23 May 07 |
| I went on Friday with some friends and we thought it was very enjoyable. Some parts are really funny and Bob Martin is brilliant. Elaine Paige is quite funny although is a tiny part. Summer Strollen is wonderful especially in her big number I Don't Wanna Show Off No More. Nickolas Grace was also good as were the rest of the cast with the exception of John Partridge who wasn't funny and made a complete mess of the tap dancing routine. I don't think the show is doing very well whch is a pity, but we were surprised when we got our tickets for just £10 with lastminute.com, and it started just a few days ago. Having said a large lady in the box office managed to scare away at least 10 people who were trying to buy tickets. She wasn't even in the window, but everytime somebody dared to ask a question about the seating plan or the cast she would come and be rude to them. Thanks goodness I just had to pick up my tickets and didn't need to ask any questions. The show, although not the best I've seen, is nonetheless a very charming and entertaining one. - Mel | 20 May 07 |
| Deliriously enjoyable. Heartwarming, hilariously funny, gorgeous to look at, and with a host of superb performances especially from Bob Martin and Summer Strallen. The review below must be a miserable person to not be able to enjoy this charming, enchanting show. - j | 18 May 07 |
| What an awful show. Saw it on Broadway and was a waste of time and money. Sorry! But now with Elaine Paige, "no Thanks". My wife thought the same and I would say how silly a story. It was made as a Stage night present for someone in Canada. What can I say: BORING CHAPERONE. - Massimo Barnes | 18 Mar 07 |
