Posted: Wednesday 26th March 2008

The Mamma Mia phenomenon is still impressively strong judging from last night’s performance at the Prince Of Wales Theatre. First performed in 1999 the show, which incorporates the many hits of Swedish pop sensations Abba, has been going for 9 years and entertaining audiences the world over.

Mamma Mia tells the story of Sophie Sheridan (Katie Brayben). Sophie is 20-years old and has spent her entire life not knowing who her father is. After discovering her mother’s diary, she realises that her father could be one of three men that her mother had flings with 20 years earlier. Due to marry fiancé Sky (Oliver J. Hembrough), Sophie wants her father to give her away so she invites the three men to her wedding and plots to house them in her mother’s hotel in Greece. With the wedding stepping into gear once her aunties Tanya (Jane Gurnett) and Rosie (Joanna Monro) arrive on the island, Sophie tries her hardest to separate her three possible fathers from her mother until she discovers her real father. Unfortunately for Sophie her mother Donna (Linzi Hateley) bumps into all three men and the Sheridan’s go on a journey of self-discovery that neither of them had anticipated.

After the disaster of Desperately Seeking Susan we were sceptical about another musical which uses well-known songs as their musical numbers. As it turns out we needn’t have bothered as the inclusion of Abba’s hits here are worthwhile and they actually make sense in the plot. The show opens with Sophie singing I Have A Dream as she posts the three invites to the men she believes could be her father and continues full-steam ahead with all of the Abba songs we know and love. Particular highlights include Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A Man After Midnight) which is used during a disco scene as Sophie interrogates her mother’s ex-lovers one-by-one, Does Your Mother Know? sung by the tarty Tanya to her would-be toyboy and Mamma Mia sung by Donna as she faces the three men in her life for the first time. Every single song used in Mamma Mia is worked into the plot and links each scene together with impressive ease.

The cast of Mamma Mia do a superb job. The standouts are the three older female characters; Donna, Tanya and Rosie. Together the trio are like a comedy act with Donna reluctantly taking centrestage, Tanya looking for her next husband and Rosie using humour and sarcasm to hide her loneliness. They interact with the three leading male characters, Harry (Paul Ryan), Bill (Andrew Hall) and Sam (Richard Lang), with incredible chemistry and they all buzz off each other throughout the show. Special mention must be given to Jane Burnett as Tanya. Burnett may be best known for her work in Casualty but on stage she steals every single scene and her solo number (Does Your Mother Know?) with toyboy Pepper (Giovanni Spano) is one of the many highlights from this superb show. Sadly the weak link in the cast is Katie Brayben as Sophie. At times it was difficult to hear her vocals and occasionally she over-enthused and her performance suffered from being a little over-the-top. For the most part she was fine but every so often she stood out from the rest of the cast due to the quietness of her delivery.

Mamma Mia truly is a phenomenon. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a huge Abba fan because the songs have been reworked to fit the feel of a West End show and the story is so strong that there’s plenty to enjoy. For those who do love Abba, you’ll feel as if you’ve died and gone to heaven. The cast do a three-song encore and by the time Waterloo started the majority of the audience were clapping and singing along with a few people dancing in their seats. We left the Prince of Wales theatre with a huge grin plastered on our faces, the desire to buy Abba Gold in our minds and our dancing shoes firmly ready for a good party. From the amazing choreography through to the superb cast and of course the incredible music, Mamma Mia is everything you could want from a good stage show and much more beyond.