Funny Girl

Synopsis

Fearless ugly duckling Fanny Brice resolutely believes she’s ‘a great big clump of talent!’ and sets out to show the world that her star quality can win over Broadway and fulfil her American dream. But as Fanny’s star rises with the legendary Ziegfeld Follies, her stormy marriage to the charismatic but wayward entrepreneur Nick Arnstein falters. Funny Girl brilliantly balances exuberance and energy with genuine emotion. Poignant, gutsy and wildly witty, its dazzling score includes ‘I’m the Greatest Star’, ‘People (who need people are the luckiest people in the world)’ and the rousing ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’. .

Our Review:

9 May 2008

The story of the clownish vaudevillian singer Fanny Brice may have been sanitised, or simplified, for the 1964 musical Funny Girl, but this glorious revival which opens the Chichester Festival Theatre summer season in the smaller Minerva does not pull any punches in showing how love can curdle into cynical disappointment.

The moment we hear Samantha Spiro launch into “People” – people who need people are still the luckiest people in the world – we think immediately of Barbra Streisand, who shot to overnight stardom on Broadway, then in London, then on celluloid in William Wyler’s marvelous film. But Streisand was only cast after Mary Martin, Anne Bancroft and Carol Burnett all turned down the role.

So Spiro has plenty of room to manoeuvre, and she makes of Fanny a dynamic little sweet-natured oddball with a goofy grin, a big heart and an incurable infatuation with a good looking ne’er-do-well, Nick Arnstein, her “ruffled shirt,” whom Mark Umbers portrays as an impo...

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Latest User Review

rds - 31 May 2008:

I agree with the other 5 * reviews here a terrific production which worked really well in the much smaller space of the Minerva. Samantha Spiro stole the show with a bravura turn as Fanny Brice and Mark Umbers was suitably dashing as Nick Arnstein. The rest of the cast did a great job. If I had one critiscism it was spreading some of the smaller roles around too much but then production costs no doubt dictated that. Funny Girl made up for the unexceptional The Cherry Orchard in the afternoon and helped to take the sting out of the long drive back to London afterwards. Don't miss it! ...

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