This isn’t a sponsored post.
BrumHour saw An Officer and A Gentleman at the invite of The Alexandra.
For Brum Radio’s Interval Theatre, Sinead Long talked about her role in this touring production. Listen below:
By Dave Massey twitter.com/BrumHour
This production contains slurs and frequent uses of very strong language.
Review: An Officer and A Gentleman – The Musical at The Alexandra
“A chocolate box musical”
Directed by Nikolai Foster, Book by Douglas Day Stewart and Sharleen Cooper Cohen
Zack (Luke Baker) has joined the US Navy officer programme along with Sid (Paul French), whilst Paula (Georgia Lennon) and Lynette (Sinead Long) work at a local factory. A chance encounter means Paula catches Zack’s eye. But Foley (Jamal Crawford), their navy leader has warned them off the local women.
Set in the 1980s, this touring production leans into the big music of the decade including; Up Where We Belong from the hit 1982 An Officer and a Gentleman film. Plus versions of Girls Just Want To Have Fun and Material Girl, Livin’ on a Prayer and Toy Soldiers are threaded among its jukebox songs. (There’s even a physical jukebox on the stage to emphasise this.)
The set is the inside of a large cage with one large cage staircase as the main centrepiece with plenty of furniture to choreograph like clockwork.
The two romantic pairs of leads stand out easily with confident vocals and Olivia Foster-Browne as Seegar is a real crowd pleaser as the one woman in the officer’s group fighting to be there.
Some of the song choices feel pretty random and whilst it is filled with great songs it sometimes feels those songs are surplus to requirements, maybe this will ease as the tour settles in. This was, after all, the first proper press night of the tour.
The story is of its day and uses strong language, racial slurs and homophobic slang which might confuse a 2024 audience. I haven’t seen the film of this so its difficult to know how it compares.
A chocolate box musical, An Officer and A Gentleman is at The Alexandra until 2nd March 2024. Discover what is coming up at The Alexandra here: atgtickets.com/venues/alexandra-theatre-birmingham. The UK tour currently continues until November 2024. Find out more here: officerandagentlemanthemusical.com/#booktickets.
