Superior performance from the Sisters (From Gazette Series)

Review: Sister Act, Bristol Hippodrome

11:21am Thursday 12th January 2012 in What's On By Jayne Bennett

SISTERS really were doing it for themselves at the Bristol Hippodrome last night, as Sister Act came to town on its first national tour.

Like so many successful musicals of the moment, Sister Act is based on a film, originally released in 1992 and starring Whoopi Goldberg, who went on to produce the stage show.

This version of Sister Act, which certainly lives up to its billing as ‘A Divine Musical Comedy’, is set in 1970s Philadelphia. Deloris Van Cartier is a struggling club singer who is witness to a mobland murder. Deloris is taken into police protection until such time as she is able to testify, going into hiding as a nun. Whilst there, she uses her singing talent to transform the choir, and thereby the struggling finances of the church; ultimately leading to a shoot-em-up in the church and a performance for the pope.

Although Denise Black and Michael Starke, both former soap favourites, were the big names in this production, it was the rest of the cast who shone brighter than the sparkly costumes of the final scene. Exceptional in their roles were the mobsters Gavin Alex, Tyrone Huntley and Daniel Stockton, with a stand-out vocal performance from Cavin Cornwall as Curtis Jackson. Also worthy of mentions are Julie Atherton as the meek and mild Sister Mary Robert who finally finds her voice, and Jacqueline Clarke, as the funky and fun Sister Mary Lazarus.

Unfortunately, the extremely talented Cynthia Erivo, who plays the sassy Deloris Van Cartier was unable to perform in the second half and , during an extremely prolonged interval, some last-minute decisions were made and Gemma Knight Jones bravely stepped into her platforms with appropriate class and sass, especially during the show’s great musical numbers which, although largely unfamiliar to most in the audience, lifted the performance out of the ordinary and into the realms of the ‘superior’.

It is unfortunate that the show was literally in two halves, and my heart goes out to both ‘Deloris’ who performed under such difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, the show must go on - and so it did - and the standing ovation from the audience was thoroughly deserved.