Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin
This whole show is warm and funny and hugely entertaining, but the best part comes at the end when an announcer says: “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Susan Boyle.” Suddenly there she is, the most recognisable reality TV star on the planet, wearing an emerald green dress and attempting the cúpla focal as a cheering audience rises for one of several ovations.
It’s like the Queen’s visit all over again.
Of course, she immediately launches into I Dreamed A Dream, her soaring audition piece from Britain’s Got Talent which, three years ago, catapulted her via YouTube and a supportive Demi Moore tweet to global stardom. After watching a musical based on Boyle’s life – co-writer Elaine C Smith, who can more than hold a tune, plays Boyle with aplomb – it is somewhat surreal to see the genuine article standing there blowing kisses to the audience. (Those expecting to take pictures of Boyle should be warned that assiduous theatre staff are on hand to foil such plans by shining bright torches at the cameras and phones of offending audience members.)
Nesbit and Alan McHugh’s script hangs on a fairytale narrative, which is perfect because that’s what Boyle’s rags-to-riches story resembles. We follow the singer from her birth as a baby with mild learning difficulties in 1960s Scotland to her school days in West Lothian where she was bullied and called a “daftie”, to her touching romance with her first and only boyfriend. By the time she auditions for Simon Cowell’s talent show she is an unemployed 47-year-old living alone in the home where she has looked after her now deceased mother for most of her adult life.
You know the rest. The extraordinary audition. Questionable hip wiggles. Boyle’s tendency to blurt out “bloody fantastic” when lost for words. The hounding by paparazzi. Coming second in the talent show. That spell in the Priory. All followed by the fastest-selling debut album in history.
The cast is strong and the production design deceptively simple – a cleverly conceived wall of vintage televisions provides an appropriate backdrop. And Boyle, who has been notoriously wary of performing live since the Britain’s Got Talent tour, appears to be having fun. “Go on Dublin,” she yells to another standing ovation before doing one of her famous hip wiggles. Bloody fantastic.
Ends Saturday
