Beverley Knight’s storming voice and personality, and some stunning group numbers, just about keep this expensive but rickety musical buoyant. An adaptation of the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg film about a gangster’s girlfriend hiding out in a convent, teaching music to and learning sisterhood from a choir of nuns, the show has warmth, several joyous moments and flashes of wit. But Bill Buckhurst’s production is the result of multiple compromises beneath the happy-clappy surface glitz.
Although the adaptation is set in 1977, Alan Menken’s score is only occasionally soulful and never funky. It has four or five belting anthems – including Knight’s Fabulous, Baby! and the ensemble crowd-pleaser Take Me To Heaven – but also a lot of easy-listening or pop-patter padding. Jennifer Saunders as a wintry, talk-singing Mother Superior, and a host of fine musical performers, are underused.
