Review: Happy Days (UK Tour) at the Milton Keynes Theatre

Happy Days (UK Tour)

Milton Keynes Theatre

Reviewed on Monday 16th June 2014

Lucy-Jane Adcock and Jason Winter

Having seen Happy Days right at the start of its UK tour five months ago, I was particularly looking forward to seeing how the show has grown and developed over the course of its run.

A bright and cheerful musical, Happy Days is based on the television show of the same name which aired between 1974 and 1984. Set in the 50s, the musical follows the Cunningham family as they battle to save their local diner Arnold’s.

Happy Days is certainly in good, if not better, shape. There is now an extra slickness to proceedings while some performances have grown and settled. It seems director/choreographer Andrew Wright can do no wrong, his choreography remains astoundingly brilliant. The show's design is fantastic for a touring production.

The only problems I have with Happy Days lie with the material and not this production. Second time round I found the storyline dull, I struggled to get into it. There's a difference between a show being light-hearted and bland, and Happy Days verges on becoming bland. As I wrote in my last review, the show doesn't drag as the running time is only just over two hours; however, scenes do occasionally dip.

Interview: Cheryl Baker

Cheryl Baker is currently starring as Mrs Cunningham in the UK Tour of new musical Happy Days. Directed and choreographed by Olivier Award nominee Andrew Wright, Happy Days was heavily featured on last year’s Channel 4 ‘The Sound of Musicals’ documentary as producer Amy Anzel put her life on the line to get the show up and running.

As a member of the pop group Bucks Fizz, Cheryl Baker won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981 and has subsequently had more than 20 hit records including three number ones. She made her theatrical debut in Footloose’s UK Tour which transferred into the West End. Chery recently took part in Celebrity Masterchef and finished as the runner-up on Pop Star To Opera Star in 2011. 

I recently spoke to Cheryl backstage in her dressing room as she prepared for a performance of Happy Days about why she immediately agreed to star in the musical, why she finds touring life tough, how she deals with nerves and what it’s like to receive such incredible support from fans…

Have you enjoyed creating the role of Mrs Cunningham for the new musical adaptation of Happy Days?

Well the funny thing is although we’ve created this new show, we’ve also had to emulate – well copy – the actual series which was on in the 70s and 80s! The show has been written by Garry Marshall who also wrote the series and it was very important to our producer, Amy [Anzel], that the characters were as close to the TV series as possible, so we’ve all had to do our research and watched Happy Days on repeat on our iPads, or whatever, to see how our characters speak and what their mannerisms are. Back in the 70s we loved everything about the show in the UK, there was nothing like it! We loved The Fonz with his leather jacket and motorbike, the American style of clothes that they wore – our costumes in the show are just fantastic.