Review: HELLO, DOLLY!, London Palladium
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan
Well, Hello Dolly, “it’s so nice to have you back where you belong”, on the stage of the London Palladium for a short ten-week season. The show was due to be back in 2020 when Covid struck and was delayed due to the availability of its star Imelda Staunton to this summer but finally, it makes its long-awaited return.
The classic 1964 musical by Jerry Herman was last on a West End main stage in 1983 and we recall seeing Carol Channing in the title role in 1979 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. She appeared in regular revivals of this melodic romantic musical comedy, the last on Broadway in 1995. Yet, many of our memories of the show are defined by the 1969 film with the very young Michael Crawford as Cornelius Hackl, Walter Matteau as the lugubrious Horace Vandergelder, and Barbara Streisand as the irrepressible Dolly Levi. Indeed, any new production inevitably must be compared with the wonderful film version with its fabulous spectacle of ‘When The Parade Passes By’ and with Louis Armstrong ‘s brilliant ‘Hello Dolly’. We can report that Dolly is “still going strong” in the hands of the beloved British musical theatre star, Imelda Staunton. The temperature rises on each of her appearances as she struts the stage and holds the huge Palladium audience rapt by her stage presence and delightful smile. It is enough to carry the show.
It is a relatively thin plot. Levi is a widowed matchmaker hired by Vandergelder but scheming to match him with herself. As part of her plotting, she involves his two staff members, Hackl and Tucker, whom she matches with milliners Molloy and Fay, and plans to emerge phoenix-like from her self-imposed exile (after her husband’s death) from the Harmonia Garden Restaurant to capture Vandergelder for herself. She drives the narrative with a wry wicked sense of humour as she manipulates those around her and is always ready with an appropriate business card to offer assistance.
The support from Jenna Russell as Irene Molloy, Andy Nyman as Vandergelder and Harry Hepple as Hackl is solid without wiping away the memory of what has gone before, and the settings are practical without being spectacular. True, there is a good-looking Yonkers tram, an impressive New York bound train, a glorious staircase and effective back projection of the city scape but generally, the stage looks huge and empty. The overuse of a conveyor belt across the centre stage seems to restrict the creativity of director Dominic Cooke and the choreography by Bill Deamer seems to be derivative of the film’s choreography, especially in the ‘Waiter’s Gallop’ and ‘Before The Parade Passes By’ rather than reimagining the classic routines. It’s an enjoyable show, tinted by nostalgia from what we have seen before, but never quite soars as we might have expected despite Imelda Staunton’s charisma.
Staunton does not reach the powerfully emotional level of her Mama Rose in Gypsy and the staging lacks in wonder and spectacle but the romantic charm of ‘It Only Takes A Moment’ and ‘Elegance’, the uplifting ‘Put On Your Sunday Clothes’ and ‘Before The Parade Passes By’, and the rousing ‘Hello Dolly’ are wonderful numbers, and it is a joy to see them on the magnificent Palladium stage . You can “feel the room swayin’!”
It’s a delightful summer musical theatre escape and even with the best stalls seats priced at £140 each, it is sure be a sell-out hit. We can report that “You're lookin' swell, Dolly”, “You're still goin' strong” and that “while the band's playin’ one of our old favourite songs from way back when”, it will bring a smile to your face and have you swaying along to the music.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
Hello, Dolly! plays at the London Palladium until 14 September, with tickets available here.