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The Tunes are great…cracking choreography and tremendous yee-ha energy
Metro
The stage brims with leaping, twirling and backward-somersaulting that is genuinely invigorating
Guardian If you are a fan of the film you'll love it
British Theatre Review Packed with Barnstorming choreography
Mail on Sunday Adrian Allsopp's choreography is impressively bold
The Times But it is the athletic dancing for which this show will be remembered. Adrian Allsopp's vibrant choreography demands remarkable agility from the brothers (led by Jay Webb who
played Gideon) and they do not disappoint. The play easily stands aloft with the likes of West Side Story and A Chorus Line in its artistic demandsBritish theatre Guide Each and every
Bride and Brother gives an impressively energetic, strong all-round performance, doing full justice to Adrian Allsopp's excellent choreography But the
show really stands out from others thanks to its all-action, breathtaking choreography from young British choreographer Adrian Allsopp.Some catchy tunes support a light-hearted (multiple) love story
powered by boisterously extended dance sequences devised by young British choreographer Adrian Allsopp for all 25 cast members. Stalwart veteran Dave Willetts heads the cast as Adam, the eldest brother, with the perky
Shona Lindsay as Milly, the first of the seven brides. On his half-yearly trip into town he meets and marries her in an afternoon, 'forgetting' to inform her that there are six more brothers on the homestead waiting for
her – to do the cooking and cleaning. The loving comes later. This is not the first attempt to put Donen's film onto the stage. A Broadway version in 1982 collapsed after only five performances and a West End staging
fared similarly four years later. This current production, previously on tour around the country, has proved successful enough to come to rest in London. It's likely to be around for a while. Too bad it couldn't
have found itself a more expansive stage than the Haymarket. Allen Robertson , Tue Aug 22 2006 Time Out  Enter the woman whom the eldest brother has improbably
married and lo, she instantly transforms his six siblings into Nureyevs. They remove the beards, moustaches and frizzy wigs that have made them look like badly made-up silent-movie
villains and, clean-shaven and inexplicably dressed in Cossack costumes, they twirl round their DIY homestead as if auditioning for the Kirov. Did Snow White achieve half as much with her seven dwarfs?
It's been said that the musical's sexual politics lie somewhere between the Bronze and Iron Ages, but at least the librettists, Lawrence Kasha and David S. Landay, suggested that women
were born to civilise as well as to cook, sew and clean. That was something for 1954, when the original film appeared, with Howard Keel as the eldest brother, Adam, and Jane Powell as
Milly, the spunky gal he woos like Petruchio in The Shrew and weds even faster. Whether it helps to justify the show's stage revival now is another matter.
As frontier musicals go, this certainly isn't Oklahoma! and isn't quite Annie Get Your Gun, either. But it's good-natured, boasts the jaunty and pretty score that won an Oscar. At the Haymarket
it offers plenty of energetic, athletic ballet. The axe-waving, log-chopping number is stronger in the film, as is the square
dance that escalates into a bust-up when Adam's brothers go looking for wives themselves; but then the Haymarket stage isn't large enough for anything very ambitious and Adrian Allsopp's
choreography is impressively bold. That can't be said for much of the acting, which has an over-the-top swagger about it. But then it's
tough bringing life to spoof-Western lines such as "Milly, don't get yaself in no big fret", or, just before the brothers kidnap their prospective spouses, "We ain't trappin' bears, we trappin' women".
And although Shona Lindsay brings vocal sweetness and some force of character to Milly, Dave Willetts's Adam relies too much on built-in charisma and needs both to sharpen his diction and
ensure that his singing voice doesn't grind like a threshing machine at climaxes. Still, it's mildly touching when he modifies his belief in male superiority and agrees that, as the song
says, a woman's place is beside and not behind her man. Meanwhile, the kidnapped women do what's expected in sentimental musicals, which is . . . well, see the show for yourselves if you've an evening to spare.
'The Times August 2006' Benedict Nightingale at the Theatre Royal, Hayymarket. A touring stage version of the classic 1954 screen musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers has
opened at the West End's Theatre Royal, Haymarket, with a cast led by Dave Willetts as the oldest brother of seven siblings who marries Shona Linday's Milly; the rest of the brothers then kidnap six
young ladies to be their own partners. Did critics bless these brides and brothers?Here's a sampling of what they had to say: Mark Shenton in his Theatre.com Review: "This is the equivalent of what in the U.S. would be a summer stock theatre production—companies that produce shows in the summertime only and reuse
'stock' scenery and costumes to do so… But if the look of it is cheap and cheerful, so are this musical's shamelessly unreconstructed sexual attitudes… A bunch of jaunty Gene de Paul and Johnny
Mercer songs go some way towards offering occasional compensating pleasures. There is also some pleasingly boisterous choreography to accompany them. But for this stage makeover of the 1954
Oscar-winning film, the original score has been unhelpfully augmented by new songs by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn that keep returning the show back to earth with both a plodding earnestness and
more dodgy sexual politics as in a song like 'A Woman Should Know Her Place.' The show ends in a group shotgun marriage; and the production itself is a shotgun marriage between a homespun and
hoedown fantasy that it becomes exhausting to try to align yourself with but is just as tiring to attempt to resist." Benedict Nightingale of The London Times:
"Most American musicals are exercises in wish-fulfilment, and none more so than Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I mean, here are near-fe ral backwoodsmen whose idea of eating supper is to leap on to a timber table and gobble. Enter the woman whom the eldest brother has improbably married and lo, she instantly
transforms his six siblings into Nureyevs. They remove the beards, moustaches and frizzy wigs that have made them look like badly made-up silent- movie villains and,
clean-shaven and inexplicably dressed in Cossack costumes, they twirl round their DIY homestead as if auditioning for the Kirov. Did Snow White achieve half as much with
her seven dwarfs?... As frontier musicals go, this certainly isn't Oklahoma! and isn't quite Annie Get Your Gun, either. But it's good-natured, boasts the jaunty and pretty
score that won an Oscar. At the Haymarket it offers plenty of energetic, athletic ballet. The axe-waving, log-chopping number is stronger in the film, as is the square dance that escalates
into a bust-up when Adam's brothers go looking for wives themselves; but then the Haymarket stage isn't large enough for anything very ambitious and Adrian Allsopp's choreography is impressively bold."
Michael Billington of The Guardian: "The silly season is clearly upon us. How else do you explain the arrival in the West End of this touring show, which, after nine months on the road, has clearly
lost some of its freshness?… Only one thing keeps the show alive: the dancing. Although Adrian Allsopp's choreography can't match Kidd's original, it is delivered with verve. A social dance in the
first act sees the stage brimming with leaping, twirling, backward-somersaulting figures. Later, the brothers, segregated from their future brides, express their sexual frustration by brandishing their
choppers and arching their unsatisfied limbs. Otherwise, the show rarely rises above an honest competence. Dave Willetts as Adam looks suitably gruff and surly, but the character is an unlikable
stiff. And, although the character of Milly is described as 'sassy' and 'spunky,' Shona Lindsay suggests the cheery wholesomeness of a school matron. Both she and Willetts are solid
professionals, but they don't exactly exude the harsh air of Oregon." Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph:
"Everything about the show is inferior to the original picture, and the production, which has been on the road for nine months, looks impoverished and
irredeemably second-rate in a West End setting. Asking theatregoers to pay pounds 47.50 for a top-price ticket that would have seemed overpriced at 20 quid in the sticks is grotesque, especially
when the DVD of the original movie is available for under a tenner. You'd have thought that after touring for so long the show would at least have achieved a certain slickness, but not a bit of it…
Unfortunately, the revised script isn't as sharp or provocative as the original, and the additional songs by inferior hands badly slow the action down. The movie lasts a brisk 98 minutes. The show
bores on for almost three hours. The best one can say of the dancing is that the company perform with spirited energy. Unfortunately, Adrian Allsop's choreography, though virile and athletic, has
none of the inventive wit of Michael Kidd's original routines, while the fight sequences are downright pathetic." Kieron Quirke of The Evening Standard:
"A laughable technical fault got the press night of this devitalised revival off to a bad start. Otherwise the show, come to the West End after a lengthy
tour, went like clockwork. But there's nothing like watching a clock to make the hours go slow... Though the stage adaptation of the original MGM musical has been around for decades, this
production still relies heavily on celluloid recognition factor. Adrian Allsopp's choreography is a well drilled, lowstakes repackaging of the film's stunt dancing. The frenetic dance battle, in which the
brothers and their township rivals sweatily compete over the blissfully aware girls, is a highlight. But well drilled describes almost every aspect of the show. Whether it's down to months spent on the
road, or a to a chronic lack of imagination, Seven Brides feels produced by numbers. Dave Willetts' Adam and Shona Lindsay's Milly show teeth and sing well but there's zilch chemistry there."
Simon Edge of The Daily Express: "There is something surreal about the Hollywood film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers… Seeing the Fifties' film translated onto a 21st-century stage—this version
has just arrived in London after a long national tour—has the same effect, only more so. The aw-shucks schmaltz is still there, asking us to believe these hairy horn-dogs are dreamy innocents
who just want to get their gals roses. But, unlike their Fifties' forebears, these gym-toned boys eat their breakfast stripped to the waist. Modern producers need pecs-appeal to sell tickets. As with the
movie, what seems dodgy at first—why on earth does Milly fall in love with caveman Adam after he seduces her with a lie and treats her as the ultimate abused wife?—becomes charming through the
sheer foot-tapping force of the songs. This is a show where the choreographer is king and Adam's six brothers work their stinking socks off with a dazzling display of dancing and acrobatics. Pint-sized
Jay Webb is electrifying as youngest brother Gideon, who has the most to do. Yet the brilliant choreography seems to have come at the expense of direction, with lines drowned by the band,
uncontrolled crowd scenes and diction and accents which could have done with a voice coach."
Robert Gore-Langton of
The Daily Mail: "The bubbly songs by Gene de Paul and Johnny
Mercer—'Bless Your Beautiful Hide,' for one—help keep cynicism at bay. But none of the tunes (with some additional non-film stuff thrown in) come anywhere near the standard set by Oklahoma! I was
rather hoping to go along with this vintage nonsense, shout 'Yee-ha!' and fire a few shots in the air for encouragement. But I lost the will to shoot anything but myself after about 20 minutes. Even in
such a dotty story, it was the relentless ramming home of wholesome 'little woman' American values which made me queasy. It's a musical that cries out for Morecambe and Wise to come on in stetsons
and wreck it. At least no one can accuse this company of a lack of enthusiasm or energy. The veteran musical star Dave Willetts is well preserved in a creosoted sort of way. His gal, Milly, is
perkily played by Shona Lindsay, her magnificent teeth to the fore… This is a family show you could take your granny to without a worry. But I'm not sure that it's viable any longer if you've seen the
recent gay western, Brokeback Mountain. Are these brothers, one wonders, really looking for love—and if so, does it necessarily involve girls? Either way, with more than two dozen musicals
already in the West End, there's every reason to head this one off at the pass." CLICK ON THE PICTURES BELOW TO VIEW THE REVIEWS ON THESE PERFORMANCES CHOREOGRAPHED BY ADRIAN ALLSOPP.
To contact Adrian, click here
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