Review Roundup: I'M EVERY WOMAN at Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre

What are critics saying about I'm Every Woman?

London Box Office

"Pacy, vibrant, has some sass and delivers a barrel full of funk/soul/R&B tunes"

★★★

Reviewer: Stuart King

"Ain’t Nobody definitely forms one of the major highlights of the Troubadour Wembley’s new opening I’M EVERY WOMAN, which has been patchily written by Nia T. Hill and is based on the long and oft-turbulent life and career of Chicago South-side songstress Chaka Khan. Born Yvette Stevens, much of the biographic detail revolves around the usual pay-off decisions which an artist is required to make if they are to have both a successful career in the music industry, and enjoy any semblance of a family life. With a seeming litany of failed relationships and a loving but combative and competitive sisterhood behind her, Ms Khan has done what many failed to do — she has survived 50 years in a brutally cut-throat world run by be-suited, self-appointed bastions of taste and trend, and her music has stood the test of time. But does the show directed by Racky Plews and choreographed by Ebony Clarke make for meaty and substantial entertainment?"

Read the review here.

The Guardian

"Queen of Funk’s jukebox epic lacks the X factor"

★★★

Reviewer: Ammar Kalia

"Burke plays Khan with an energetic youthfulness – but when it comes to vocals faces a sisyphean task. She makes a valiant effort of singalong hits like Ain’t Nobody and Tell Me Something Good, but lacks the resonance to replicate Khan’s power. Nowhere is this clearer than during the ballad Through the Fire, which employs three singers to replicate Khan’s performance and still falls short of her key-jumping agility. Director Racky Plews’ staging is nimble, making use of immersive projections, while the ensemble boasts a comic star in Ashley Stroud, as Khan’s bolshie younger sister, Taka Boom. Yet when the second half arrives and Khan finds herself the “Queen of Funk” in the 1980s, the show runs entirely out of pace and music."

Read the review here.

Photo by Danny Kaan

The Telegraph

"Don’t bother with the Chaka Khan musical, just read her Wikipedia page "

★★

Reviewer: Fiona Mountford

"Nia T Hill’s script gallops breathlessly along in the manner of a loosely fleshed-out Wikipedia entry, leaving no time for niceties such as characterisation. So sketchy are some of the portrayals in Racky Plews’s production that I got to the end of the show without knowing who a couple of characters were. Hill includes a would-be clever sleight-of-hand conceit around one of the lead roles, yet it becomes a device so ineptly handled that it required some post-show research for me to crack it."

Read the review here.

WhatsOnStage

"Jumps along without coherence"

★★

Reviewer: Sarah Crompton

"It’s also a shame because on stage, the now 73-year-old is played by Alexandra Burke, who not only has a voice that rises to any occasion but also has a presence and an acting quality capable of transforming moments of a written-by-rote show into theatrical magic. The problem lies most of all in Nia T Hill’s script, which reduces Khan’s life to a series of clichés: talented Black girl with absent, heroin-using father marries two rubbish men and is exploited by the record industry. Each trope in this narrative is told in scenes that move too swiftly to allow any depth of character development and are peppered with lines such as “I have to find my freedom” and “Honoured to meet you, Miles Davis.” But it’s made worse by direction from Racky Plews that allows the portrayal of the musical figures Khan meets en route – Davis, Stevie Wonder, Steve Winwood, Prince – to descend into a series of comic turns and bad wigs. All these figures are shown because they had a dynamic effect on Khan’s music; to turn them into caricatures earns a few laughs but feels unforgivable."

Read the review here.

The Standard

"Tedious and utterly un-funky"

★

Reviewer: Nick Curtis

"The script (by Khan’s creative director Nia T. Hill) is bad. The projection-based designs are bad. The cartoonish cameo appearances by Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Miles Davis and others are traducingly awful. The singing voices of a cast led by an extravagantly bewigged Alexandra Burke are pretty much the only saving grace, though the garish costumes are fun in a Wembley-hen-night kind of way. After the obligatory curtain raiser of the title song, the show opens (and eventually closes) with Khan and her mother, sisters and daughter at a group therapy session. This sets the tone for the mopey, confessional, expository dialogue to come. Then whoosh, it’s on with the whistle-stop life story."

Read the review here.

Get up to date on all the other new theatre openings this month so you don't miss out on some of the great shows now playing in the West End. And if you're interested in what's happening at Edinburgh Fringe, check out our list of the ten Fringe shows we're most excited about.

I'm Every Woman Tickets