The musical based on the life of singing sensation Susan Boyle — remember her rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Britain’s Got Talent heard around the world? — are in from last night’s opening, and here’s a surprise: The show, fittingly titled I Dreamed a Dream, is supposed to be pretty darn good.
Starring Elaine C. Smith as Boyle — with a cameo appearance by Boyle herself in the finale — Dream premièred last night at Newcastle’s Theatre Royale, and we’ve rounded up the glowing notices it got (one of them calls the show “a delight”) for you here:
The Telegraph: “[Elaine C. Smith's] eerie impersonation of the singer strikes all who hear it dumb with awe. … The overall shape of the show is hard to fault, and in matching the gutsy good humour of its heroine without stooping to hagiography, this is a delight that deserves to go far, and fast, as she has done.”
Daily Mail: “Ed Curtis’s production, performed before a bank of TV screens, is more than just a get-rich-quick scheme or a piece of craven hagiography. It’s also a jolly good knees-up. Between moments of throat-clearing reverentiality and tear-stained crooning, there is much fun to be had.”
Scotsman: “There is a kind of paradox at the heart of this version of Susan Boyle’s story, in that it comes in the form of a first-person narrative, and therefore gives a powerful, articulate speaking voice to a woman famously able to express herself best through the songs she sings; the Susan conjured up for us by Elaine C. Smith, in a tremendously effective and moving star performance, almost inevitably has a confidence and presence, when not singing, that Boyle famously lacked.”
I Dreamed a Dream plays in Newcastle until March 31, before heading out to tour Britain and Ireland.
Read more at Entertainment Weekly
Two of the articles used the term "hagiography." I learned a new word today!
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