With a raucous, foot tapping, sing-a-long encore full of passion, power and energy The Commitments comes to its conclusion with a rapturous and satisfied audience writes Paul Smalley.
Unfortunately other parts of the opening night in Manchester didn’t include the same, with some appearing to go through the motions when they weren’t performing the songs of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.Not that it was poor just a bit hit and miss.
It’s the 1980’s and Dubliner Jimmy Rabbitte played excellently by James Killen who dreams of getting a band together of potential wannabes to play proper music, “Soul Music” not Top of the Pops music. Through an unconventional auditioning process at his home in the presence of his father played by Nigel Pivaro in a comical cameo roll.
Slowly the band come together and it’s obvious that some of the band have personal issues and all don’t get on.This is where we get the title from as Jimmy says all I want is “Commitment” and the band’s name is there.Through rehearsal we see the tensions rise which lead to the obvious future break up of the group.
Individual performances overall are good with the obvious stars Imelda(Ciara MacKey), Natalie (Eve Kitchingman) and Bernie (Sarah Gardiner) as the female backing singer’s, so much that their vocals overpower the lead singer Deco (played by Ben Morris on this occasion) who although plays the character well, his voice during the performance is not powerful enough for the voice required for the role of Deco until the encore when he comes to life.
The rest of the cast all perfom more than adequately in the required rolls.
If you want musical theatre there’s something missing but if it’s a concert dramatised then it ticks the right boxes, with nostalgic songs that have stood the test of time.
The show runs until the 10th June Details
