PRODUCERS are putting their faith in big-budget musicals as the West End springs back to life. Three have opened this month: Frozen at the magnificently refurbished Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Back To The Future at the Adelphi, and Cinderella at the Gillian Lynne. The first two are based on popular movies, but what all three have in common is a delight in spectacle. I was reminded of the way that, more than a century ago, audiences were thrilled to see an avalanche, an earthquake, or a horse race on stage.
Frozen is infinitely superior to its source: a 2013 animated Disney film. The music is still by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez and the book by Jennifer Lee, but this story of sibling estrangement has far greater depth when acted by living people. Disney’s female royals all tend to have the same wide-eyed cuteness, but Samantha Barks brings to the ice-queen Elsa a genuine beauty and an aura of elegant sadness as if appalled by her supernatural powers. Stephanie McKeon as her cast-off sister, Anna, is not merely a perky goofball, but a young woman of grit.
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