REVIEWS
'Sheridan Smith - A WEST END STAR IS BORN'
Mark Shenton, Sunday ExpressThe new year gets off to an instant feel-good start with the arrival of Legally Blonde, an overwhelmingly pink and punchy musical version of the 2001 Reese Witherspoon film that is sure to prove just the ticket to thaw the winter chill.
There's certainly enough warmth and radiance on stage to melt the stoniest heart. It's a bit like seeing Disney's High School Musical growing up but to better music: we now have the university years as we follow Elle Woods, who swaps her studies in fashion to follow the man who dumps her to Harvard Law School in an attempt to woo him back.
Like Hairspray, the show follows a young woman's journey towards self-realisation and empowerment. What may seem like a bright pink fluff ball of a musical similarly reveals itself to have, beneath its bubblegum surface and Day Glo colours, a glancing wit, layers of feeling and a story that's an alternating fluffy and fabulous delight in which right triumphs.
It is propelled by an appealing new pop score by Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin but Jerry Mitchell's slick, energetic production is powered above all by an irresistibly feisty, funny performance from Sheridan Smith as Elle. A new West End star is born. Duncan James, formerly of pop group Blue, is the suave but unlikeable man who dumps her and Alex Gaumond the neatly nerdy lawyer she finds instead.
One of the best new musicals we are likely to see this year.
