Commit yourself to a night of great tunes

Photo: JOHAN PERSSON

BRIAN Gilligan belts outs a tune in the opening scene of The Commitments.

THE COMMITMENTS

(Palace Theatre,

Manchester, to April 8)

AUTHOR Roddy Doyle himself adapted his famous novel-turned-movie for the stage and to some extent he didn't do himself many favours.

In place of the novel's detail and observation come a few quips at the expense of various characters and very little background about why, for them, being in a band is potentially a way out of the poverty of their north Dublin homes.

Having said that, the movie was a huge, rollicking hit, with big "Oirish" characters, great craic and bigger tunes, and the stage show is more of the same, filling in the gaps in the show's loose narrative (band is formed, band plays, band falls apart) with some of the best tunes committed to paper in the past 40 years.

Here are covers of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Four Tops and almost 20 more, music as popular today as it was when Berry Gordy and his team of singers and writers recorded them.

While not a jukebox musical as such, the evening is at its best when the actors dispense with the dialogue and just sing and play.

Unlike The Blues Brothers - of which this is a sort of Irish musical parallel - The Commitments doesn't often stray into the muddier soul waters of Stax and its artists, relying until the end-of-show encore mostly on Motown and its stars, and is all the better for it.

Brian Gilligan is a marvellous Deco, lead singer and arrogant you-know-what, who storms out at the drop of a hat but always comes back - until he doesn't. He has a terrific voice and delivery - the two don't always go together, but here they are perfect, and he is brilliantly supported by Andrew Linnie as Jimmy, who gets the band together, Alex McMorran as Lips, the trumpeter who might have played with the originals, and the Commitmentettes - Christina Tedders and sisters Leah and Amy Penston. Kevin Kennedy is fun too, as Jimmy's dad in little more than a comedy cameo role.

If your feet have ever tapped along to Jimmy Ruffin or Smokey Robinson, this is the show for you.