Funny Girl With Sheridan Smith Film Release in Scottsdale
Sheridan Smith and Darius Campbell in Funny Girl. Picture: Marc Brenner
Funny Girl – the movie of the stage musical premiered at cinemas nationwide on 24 October 2018.
'Great' is a vastly overused word but Sheridan Smith's Fanny Brice in Funny Girl is indisputably one of the great performances on the British stage and is well worthy of preserving on film for posterity.
It rivals Imelda Staunton's Rose in Gypsy as a truly remarkable creation and the film, recorded by Digital Theatre and shown nationally on 24 October, brilliantly captures her in full bloom in the final week of the UK tour at Manchester Palace Theatre in August last year (the original production opened at the Menier Chocolate Factory at the end of 2015 before transferring to the Savoy the following year).
It may be sacrilege to say so, but I preferred it on film. The close-ups are great, you don't miss a word or an expression, you don't have someone of 6ft 6in sitting directly in front of you and spoiling the view, and it's a third of the price. It turns out that Smith's impish facial expressions and loveable cheek were larger than life and even funnier on the big screen.
And when Fanny's marriage to reckless gambler, charmer and bon viveur Nick Arnstein goes belly-up because of her possessiveness and his inability to play second fiddle to her fame, she turns from comedy to heartbreak with stunning versatility.
A great actress and a good singer, Smith can't quite match Barbra Streisand in the vocal department on the big numbers 'People', 'Don't Rain On My Parade' and my favourite 'The Music That Makes Me Dance'. But who can?
Streisand won an Oscar in the 1968 film version of her Broadway breakthrough four years earlier. With music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Merrill from Isobel Lennart's far-from-perfect book, Funny Girl became Streisand's first and only West End musical in 1966.
Smith gives us a five-star-plus performance in a flawed, so-so musical. In many ways it is a part made in heaven as Brice was also a "jolie laide" who didn't fit into the conventional image of a showbiz icon but won hearts over with an innate ability to make people laugh.
As with Smith, the singing is a sideline to her main talent – and we know from Legally Blonde and her uncanny TV portrayal of Cilla Black how vocally gifted she is on top of being one of the most exciting actors on the planet.
It is Fanny's "funniness", her goofiness and lack of vanity, that cause the incredibly handsome Arnstein (Darius Campbell is a whole foot taller than Smith) to fall in love with her in what looks a mismatch likely to end in heartache.
That's what it proves to be once Fanny's growing career as Ziegfeld's secret weapon brings new-found wealth that alters the balance of power and kills the marriage.
Harvey Fierstein has revised Lennart's thin book but the jury's still out as to whether the will-he-won't-he-stay-with-her drama is enough to sustain a long musical.
Smith is at her happiest with uncomplicated belters like 'Don't Rain On My Parade' and 'I'm the Greatest Star' or the humour of the company numbers 'Sadie, Sadie' and 'Rat-A-Tat-Tat'. And slightly less effective on the reflective ones.
The three poker-playing ladies, dotty mum Rachel Izen, Zoe Ann Bown and Myra Sands, hijack every scene they're in, Joshua Lay does well as Fanny's mentor who wants to be much more than that and Michael Mayer's direction delivers plenty of chutzpah. But it's very much a one-woman show.
The Wimbledon Odeon, where I saw it, was far from packed but other, smaller venues were well attended and further screenings are planned. But for £21 the audience is surely entitled to a cast and song list on the sheet of paper that passed as a programme.
Good news for musical theatre lovers – the recent Palladium production of The King and I with the sublime Kelli O'Hara is next up in the cinemas on 29 November.
Jeremy Chapman
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Source: https://musicaltheatrereview.com/brilliantly-captures-sheridan-smith-in-full-bloom-funny-girl-the-movie-of-the-stage-musical/
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