Jersey Boys

The programme notes pitch the whole thing very high, claiming a Rashomon storytelling style, that is, according to co-writer Rick Elice, "Shakespearean in scope". Wow. All that and songs too? How can it fail? I have to say - really quite badly.

Franki Valli's story is a long way from Hamlet's - a good thing for his mum and dad - and even quite a distance from a decent episode of The Sopranos. Revealing "for the first time" connections to the New Jersey mafia, there are hints that the biographies of the four Italian-Americans from the Garden State have real dramatic potential. Sadly, none of this drama makes it to the stage.

The first act tries to cover too much biographical ground - all that and songs too! - as it presents ("Rashomon style") as much of each of the Four Season's versions of events as possible. It is as if the writers were being called every few moments by their still-living protagonists to say "oh, and don't forget to include that story", which may explain why the late Nick Massi seems to get the short end of any narration. Constant stopping and starting of the action as characters break out to narrate events (a device best used sparingly) becomes extraordinarily tiring for the audience.

Serious points get the Fisher-Price-with-swearing treatment. This is the kid's book version of events where none of the rather worrying involvement of the Mob gets much more than cartoon reactions from the cast as they barrel forward with the "and then we did this" narrative. Interesting questions - like how four tough guys from Jersey would think dressing up, learning to dance and having a singer who sang 'like a girl' was an acceptable choice of career or lifestyle for a blue-collar working class boy - never get asked.

Even the homosexuality of the band's lyricist and record producer Bob Crewe is swerved with an off-hand remark, despite this being Sixties America where being gay was likely to get you the kind of attention usually reserved for child molesters. In fact, none of the potentially dramatic flashpoints get developed, almost as if these would get in the way of "telling the story". As a result, the end of Act One cliff-hanger of "you owe $150 000 to the Mob" falls flat and feels tacked on.

The cast and production do more justice than is strictly necessary to such a bowdlerised storyline. Ryan Molloy is an eerily good sound-alike for Valli, Stephen Ashfield as Bob Gaudio is suitably preppy and middle-class in comparison to his bandmates and Glenn Carter as wide-boy fixer, and occasional guitarist, Tommy DeVito gives a solid performance. Philip Bulcock as Massi, on the other hand, comes across as a bit thick-headed and, well, mobster-ish. But the fatal flaw is that they don't really look or act like a band - publicity photos from the time show a uniformity of haircuts not replicated on stage, for example.

The question is: who will go and see this? The answer seems to be a generation, now in their sixties, who grew up with the Four Seasons. Certainly the grey-haired chap next to me couldn't keep still as he shook along to the, sadly abbreviated, versions of their classic songs. And American tourists who maybe didn't 'get' The Beatles. Other than that, this really poorly thought out production doesn't particularly merit an audience, as an opportunity to tell a really exciting story and punch it up with big songs appears to have been smothered by the surviving Seasons' egos.

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