Legally Blonde - Palace Theatre 🐝🐝🐝🐝

Highly entertaining, glitzy and glamorous, Legally Blonde The Musical left a huge smile across my face as the curtains closed. No hard work is required on the audience’s behalf, just sit back and enjoy!

This is a feel-good fairytale not designed to connect with reality at all. It's escapism at its

finest. If you’re a hardcore socio-political commentator this isn’t the musical for you. Humour is found in stereotypes of sexuality and race – one of the biggest (and arguably best) songs sees a court of law debating whether a witness is ‘gay or European?’.

The plot is wonderfully absurd and the audience loved every bit of it. A tremendous dancing, standing ovation marked the final song.

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Theatre Experience 🐝🐝🐝

The experience of visiting Manchester’s Palace Theatre was acceptable. The main disappointment was not being able to buy a drink before the start of the show due to long queues at the bars (a shame as it was such a hot summers' day!).

The staff were helpful and pointed me to my seat. I was seated in the stalls and, unexpectedly, it was comfortable with better legroom than in the circle.

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Plot 🐝🐝🐝

This plot has had a long life so you probably already know it. Elle Woods, an air-headed Malibu blonde, UCLA sorority president, is our heroine. After being dumped by her social-climbing boyfriend, Warner, for not being “serious” enough, she decides to win him back by following him to Harvard Law School.

She must work hard and… study *gasp*! To her surprise, and everyone else’s, she realises she can be quite the intellectual. On her journey through law school she must find a way to unite both her flirty, fun-loving, fashion side with her serious, determined, lawyerly side.

To follow the plot in this musical you must suspend your disbelief. It’s bizarre in places, but all for comedic effect. Don’t take this musical seriously, and you’ll howl with laughter. It’s a (for the most part) light-hearted, feel-good, female-power, kick-ass fairytale where anything is possible – like getting into Harvard Law School by conducting a pep rally in place of a personal statement.

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Cast 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Elle Woods is played by X-factor finalist Lucie Jones – I can’t stress this woman’s talents enough. I’m cynical of talent show participants ‘featuring’ in musicals just to draw in more audience members, but Lucie deserved her standing ovation. She was goofy, hilarious, inspiring and heart-breaking at just the right moments. Her timing was perfect and the audience loved her as Elle, not to mention her too-good-to-be-true singing!

Hard-working post-grad Emmett features as Elle’s new potential love interest (friend-zoned, obviously) and actor David Barrett succeeds at balancing Lucie’s loud acting with something subtler. A lot of the comedy comes from down-trodden hair stylist Paulette whose obsession with Irish men and the ‘walking porn’ postman is a highlight of the musical.

There were no notable weak links, and overall the cast was of the very high quality that I’d expect from it as a West End and Broadway touring show.

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Staging 🐝🐝🐝🐝

The staging was very impressive and everything you’d want from an escapist fairytale. Little was left to the imagination, making it an even flashier, easier show to watch.

The costumes were colourful, detailed and highlighted the differences between Elle’s two worlds: the sorority world of fashion, and the professional working suits of Harvard. Costume changes were made into magical spectacles that I won’t spoil.

My personal highlight was real dogs. Yes, both Elle Woods’ little chihuahua Bruiser and Paulette’s bulldog were ‘acted’ by real dogs. Cries of adoration came from the audience each time they came onto stage.

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Music 🐝🐝🐝🐝

The music was sung and played live with the cast accompanied by an orchestra. The songs were largely upbeat, wonderfully written and full – lots of voices, lots of noise. It was very memorable too, days later I still have the songs playing in my head. I saw lots of head bobbing.

Most impressive was ‘Whipped Into Shape’ where fitness guru Brooke Wyndham led a cohort through an intense skipping rope routine while never breaking a sweat and still singing at the top of her lungs. Least impressive was the opening song 'Omigod You Guys' - squeaky and annoying. If your heart sinks on hearing the opening song, fear not - it improves drastically after that!

The music made the musical, without a doubt – I may not have enjoyed it if I’d seen it as a play. The soaring soundtrack filled the auditorium with fast beats, giddiness, silliness and joy.

The Theatre Bee 🐝