12:54pm Friday 4th May 2012
By Mike Wilkinson
Bristol Hippodrome
Until Saturday
YET another musical which fails to do anything more than rehash songs we’ve heard before, hanging on the back of a big name.
This is Susan Boyle’s life story and don’t we know it – Elaine C Smith, who plays Boyle, rabbited on for what felt like hours of endless narration, clicking her fingers every two minutes to change the course of the scene. I’m not sure I can handle any more annoying, pointless clicking for quite some time.
It took almost until the end of act one before a song passed her lips, although when it did she was great. A brilliant voice.
But she was only as good as what she had to work with, and with some rather limp music the unmemorable tunes have already passed me by.
It was only the song I Dreamed a Dream’ that brought the whole thing to life – and that of course is from another show, Les Miserables.
As for SuBo herself, she made an appearance at the end which I’ll never forget. She looked very awkward, as we have come to expect, but her incredible voice stole the show.
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