Legally Blonde

Synopsis

College sweetheart and homecoming queen Elle Woods doesn't take no for an answer. So when her boyfriend dumps her for someone serious, Elle puts down the credit card, hits the books, and heads for Harvard Law! Along the way, Elle proves that being true to yourself never goes out of style.

Our Review:

John Dixon - 7 December 2011

Sunderland Empire is officially in the pink this Christmas, as the smash hit musical Legally Blonde settles in to its festive home. The show has the effect of feeling you have been wrapped up in a large pink candyfloss, which is cosseting you from all your troubles and lets you leave the Theatre ready for Christmas. What more could you ask for?

Sticking close to the hit film, we follow Elle Woods (Faye Brookes) as she prepares for her boyfriend Warner (Neil Toon) to propose over dinner, but instead he dumps her. Not one to let her man get away, and showing she is no dumb blonde follows him to Harvard Law School.

At first she is not taken seriously but obviously she overcomes the objectors and wins the day, all with the aid of her faithful companion Chihuahua and fellow student Emmett (Iwan Lewis).

While in the main, the songs are instantly forgettable, that does not deter from the all singing and dancing show, which is much stronger in Act Two. A sub plot in...

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Latest User Review

David Baxter - 18 January 2012:

Having originally seen Legally Blonde in New York we did not join in with the almost universal gushing over Sheridan Smith's West End version of Elle Woods. To my mind she brought too much knowing English irony to the part when what it really requires is full-on American optimism that anything is possble - even that an airhead Valley Girl can succeed at Harvard Law School. Bill Kenwright's touring show gives us much closer to the proper Broadway version, albeit with scaled down design values and Faye Brookes bubbles and shines as Elle, even if she does have a rather squeaky singing voice. There is genuine chemistry with Iwan Lewis who is excellent as Emmett and Matthew Kelly is a suitably sinister Professor Callahan. Some of the humour seems to have been lost, possibly due to the shortcomings of some of the cast but not helped by the usual awful acoustics at Southend's Cliffs Pavilion. Legally Blonde has less to say than it thinks it does, certainly less than Hairspray, but when it's performed with this much exuberance it's hugely entertaining and sometimes that's all that you want from musical theatre....

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