THE skyscrapers and scurrying crowds of Manhattan form a massive, blow up back drop to this slick revival of the award winning West End musical, based on the hip hopping jump jive of Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five.
"Cross over" was the ever so slightly derogatory term used to denote music played by black artists but enjoyed equally by white audiences. Back in the 1940s, when Jordan was wowing a new generation of movers and shakers, hearts and minds were opened to the sexy, exotic sounds of Cuban, Latin, Caribbean and Puerto Rican music and received a wildly enthusiastic reception in the wake of the Big Bands of the war years.
How cleverly Clarke Peters has tapped into another generation, eager for new musical experiences, with this simple tale of a poor boy called Nomax (leanly played with by Jon Clairmonte), whose life revolves around a jukebox and endless quarrels with his long suffering girlfriend. One night, as he sits sunk in drunken despair, five glamorous, sophisticated creatures emerge from the neon lights and dry ice, briefly enter Nomax's grey existence and bring it to glorious, technicoloured life.
Five new faces have entered the central line up of this newly resurrected touring production and while all of them sing, dance and perform like highly polished dreams, it is Lothair Eaton, stepping into the breach at the eleventh hour as Big Moe, who stamps his huge frame and personality on proceedings and, rightly, receives the loudest applause at the end of the evening.
Everything about this glossy show, from live band, set, lighting, costumes and choreography, is big, brash and bold as brass live wire theatre of the electrifying variety.
