Soul Sister (UK Tour)
New Wimbledon Theatre
Reviewed on Monday 19th August 2013
Soul Sister is a new musical inspired by the life and times of Ike and Tina Turner. As well as featuring all of Tina's biggest hits, the show follows the highs and lows, passions and heartbreak of Ike and Tina as their careers soar and their marriage crumbles.
I first saw the show during its short West End run at the Savoy Theatre last year and was surprisingly fascinated by the story. When Ike and Tina's relationship becomes violent the show takes a dark turn and the audience became swept up in the emotion. When Tina fought back many cheered, whooped and screamed "you go girl!", I almost felt as if I was watching The Color Purple again.
I first saw the show during its short West End run at the Savoy Theatre last year and was surprisingly fascinated by the story. When Ike and Tina's relationship becomes violent the show takes a dark turn and the audience became swept up in the emotion. When Tina fought back many cheered, whooped and screamed "you go girl!", I almost felt as if I was watching The Color Purple again.
The design has massively improved since the show's West End run, which makes me think that perhaps Soul Sister wasn't ready for the West End quite so soon. Pieces of set no longer block the projections and although the set still looks a little cheap and tacky, it definitely runs much slicker and smoother than before (despite a few technical difficulties). However, patronising captions such as "meanwhile in the recording studio" are simply not necessary.
Jenny Fitzpatrick recently took over from Emi Wokoma as Tina Turner and had a tough act to follow as words cannot describe how sensationally brilliant Emi was. She never tried to play Tina, she became Tina and performed every song and scene faultlessly. Jenny is great, the show is a tough sing and she copes well. Jenny owned the stage and brought the audience to their feet for the final section, which becomes more of a theatrical concert. The rest of the cast are good, I felt the ensemble could be tighter in places and some of the acting in certain scenes is embarrassingly awful, which is a shame as the story is interesting. If written and performed better, Soul Sister could become an intense and gripping piece of theatre.
If you're a big Tina Turner fan with an interest in what she faced off-stage as well as on, you must try and catch Soul Sister before this tour ends. As well as singing along to all of Tina's most famous songs you will find yourself caught up in the heartbreaking story before jumping to your feet at the end for the fantastic finale. And perhaps, with a little further development, the show could return to the West End in the future - I love it!
Reviewed by Andrew Tomlins (Editor)
andrew@westendframe.com
Soul Sister runs at the New Wimbledon Theatre until Saturday 24th September 2013.
Click here for further information, tour dates and tickets.
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