Sinatra the Musical Has a Phenomenal Band, an Uncanny Lead and a Script Unworthy of Both at the Aldwych

Sinatra the Musical | Aldwych Theatre until 10 April 2027

A flawed portrait of Ol’ Blue Eyes with uncanny lead vocals and a phenomenal band, but an uneasy relationship with its own songbook

There appears to be a battle of enormous programmes in the West End at the moment, and Sinatra the Musical at the Aldwych Theatre is winning on sheer volume. This one is the same size as High Society’s but about three times as thick. It is absolutely fabulous, you could almost put a leg in each corner and make your own little coffee table with it! It contains some fabulous photographs and history of Frank Sinatra, and frankly, it is more evocative and informative than the musical it supports.

One of the rules of musical theatre, which Hamilton breaks of course, is that you never do a cradle-to-grave story. This production attempts to follow that line, starting in 1943 when he was a hit with the Bobby Soxers, and taking him through until he lost his contracts and was on the verge of coming back with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. That’s the period we look at here, the mid-1950s. So we see a section of his life, not his whole life.

I had high hopes when I sat down. I thought this could be like Jersey Boys, where the songs are presented as they would be performed. But no, they are bludgeoned over the head and forced into submission for scenes they were never written for. So we get this strange mixture of some things being performed as if he were in concert or in the recording studio, and otherwise people sitting in bed singing “Fly Me to the Moon” and “The Way You Look Tonight”, which I’m not the biggest fan of.

If you like Frank Sinatra, this does attempt, even though I think it may be slightly hampered by the fact that Frank Sinatra’s daughter is also involved as a producer, to tell some of the truth behind the man: the mafia links, the domestic violence. He isn’t that likeable a character, unfortunately. Joel Harper-Jackson doesn’t look like him, but certainly sounds like him and works incredibly hard the entire evening. He is supported by a 17-piece band, which sounds phenomenal.

Any musical lives and dies by its book or script, and this is where I have real issues. Joe DiPietro supplies the honours here, and when you realise that he also wrote Diana: The Musical, which is still available on Netflix, you start to understand the calibre of work here. Real characters are introduced clunkily: “Good morning, Gene Kelly,” “Hello, Lana Turner.” And as we work through a rather thin ensemble, as the evening approaches its end, the shortcomings of some of the acting and impersonation skills are more cruelly exposed.

Then we come to the use of songs, which are shoehorned in and reach their zenith in Act 2 when West End stalwart Jenna Russell, playing Frank’s mother, and Marty Maguire, his father, participate in a soft-shoe dance number for no apparent reason other than to give them something to do.

The hit Broadway musical Just in Time, which tells the Bobby Darin story, has demonstrated that this style of music can attract a wide audience that crucially includes younger theatregoers. The big difference there is that, by all accounts, it offers a more creative experience set in an immersive nightclub. Sinatra is sadly lacking in imagination in its book scenes, and looking at the demographic of the audience I attended, it appeals largely to those who may have listened to Frank Sinatra in their younger years. By the time we get to the “New York, New York” finale they were on their feet and didn’t seem to care.

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[Image Credit | Brinkhoff/Mögenburg]

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