Review: THE PIRATE QUEEN at The London Coliseum

The Broadway production’s 32 preview performances resulted in a fairly lukewarm critical response and were followed by a further 85 performances played to gradually diminishinghouses. Sunday evening was the first chance to assess whether the revisions and translation by Richard Maltby Jr and John Dempsey had spawned a vastly improved and slicker reworking of Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas. In truth, Morgana Llewelyn’s 1986 pseudo-historical novella about an Irish girl who stows aboard her Irish father’s ship, (eventually ascending to a position of clan leadership through skill and courage), provides a rich and blousy basis for musical treatment, but there are difficulties in keeping such a sprawling narrative taut and listenable — especially in the written-through musical style which requires everything to be sung.

With an eleven piece orchestra (including Uilleann pipes for that authentic Gaelic feel), and a supplementing choir drawn from Mountview and ArtsEd drama schools — all under the clinically meticulous baton of Julian Kelly — Schönberg’s score certainly offers plenty of drama and passion, but there is perhaps a tendency to overplay the intensity where a little more light and shade would lend subtlety and give the lead singers respite from their seemingly endless high-octane vocal exertions.

Despite a few technical mic issues early in the performance, Rachel Tucker as Pirate Queen, Grace O’Malley gave an assured performance with just enough swagger to remain on the right side of likeable tomboy. The counterpoint character is a detached and austere Elizabeth I of England played by Hannah Waddingham whose semi-operatic delivery paired regal aloofness with comedic superiority in equal measure. Their women’s duet She Who Has All was especially effective. Of the men, Jai McDowell (winner of the 5th season of TV’s Britain’s Got Talent) shone brightly as Grace’s love interest Tiernan, especially in their duet If I Said I Loved You and in his impassioned, roof-raiser I’ll Be There, where his beautiful phrasing and tone would have served the show better as the natural closer to the first half.

There are obvious stylistic overlaps and comparisons to be made with Les Mis, but not everything fitted seamlessly. Boys Will Be Boys attempted to imbue a moment of rumbustious levity, yet felt like an out-take from Oliver, and Rah-Rah Tip-Top flopped as an exercise in clipped courtier sycophancy.

All-in-all however, it was a bold effort which will doubtless continue to feed talk of a full-scale London staging.