The siren call comes from inside the house at 1634 Broadway: two plinking, instantly recognizable marimba notes, followed by a bubbly swell of melody and accompanied of course by Technicolor lights and the option of a triple-shot cocktail. Yes, Mamma Mia! is back on Broadway, once again providing much-needed escapism via idyllic Greek isle and the mind-clearing oeuvre of Abba.
The grandaddy – or, perhaps, erstwhile father – of the modern jukebox musical returned to the Winter Garden Theatre this month after a decade away from New York, much to the delight of pop music fans young and old charmed by its ebullient disco and gloriously ludicrous plot. It may be fair to say that it never really left; though the original closed after in 2015 after nearly 14 years on Broadway, Mamma Mia! still echoes loudly in musical theater as, arguably, the ultimate feelgood show – a “giant singing Hostess cupcake”, as the New York Times memorably put it in their 2001 review. An untold number of jukebox musicals have proliferated in its frothy wake, featuring the catalogs of everyone from Buddy Holly to Alicia Keys, Alanis Morissette to the behind-the-scenes pop maestro Max Martin, though never with quite the same level of success and enduring appeal as the originators of the term “Swedish hitmaker”. (Mamma Mia! is still running in London, where it first premiered in 1999, making it the longest-running jukebox musical in the West End, and the fifth-longest of all time.)
