Hit songs, cracking story, fabulous show

JERSEY BOYS, Opera House, Manchester, to November 7

What a week for musicals this has turned out to be. On Monday we had “Hairspray” at the Palace, which remains one of the most fun nights to be had in a theatre; and now the majestic “Jersey Boys” returns as a sort of early Christmas present.

The show was in Manchester just over a year ago for a month, but such is its power this two-week run looks set to be full once again. But the show really is that good — enough for the great Clint Eastwood to have turned it into a hit movie.

The Jersey boys in question are of course the members of The Four Seasons, and two of the main things in the show’s favour are its superlative range of hit songs, from “Sherry Baby” to “December 1963” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”, and its crackingly good story, of made-men, mobsters, New Jersey lowlife, tax evasion and much more.

It’s all related in an often funny, occasionally tragic string of scenes in which the pace never flags and there’s always another hit song on the way.

The book is a great piece of storytelling by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, which cuts music scenes with fast-moving action and doesn’t let up for a second.

The story of the four — lead singer Frankie Valli, writer Bob Gaudio and guitar-vocalists Nick Massi and Tommy DeVito — is given further interest by being told by each member of the group, all of whom see things differently.

What isn’t in doubt is the mess DeVito makes by losing mob money and evading taxes, to the tune of $162,000 and $500,000 respectively, leaving his pop family to honour his debt and keep them touring cheap venues for years — a tawdry end to a group that sold well over 100 million records, ironically turned on its head some years later with their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

And the four themselves — Matt Corner as Valli, Sam Ferriday as Gaudio, Lewis Griffiths as Massi and Stephen Webb as DeVito — are strong actors as well as being, especially in Corner’s case, superb singers, the latter catching the vocal style and amazing falsetto of Valli brilliantly among the harmonies of the rest.