This 2018 filmed version of a London West End production of 42nd Street, on a basic level, suffers from the sort of inevitable dilution of its content that comes with a 2018 West End production being based on a 1980 Broadway production, which was based on a Depression-era 1933 film (based on a novel). But this West End stage version also suffers from the fact that it’s a filmed stage musical based on a 1933 movie about a staged musical that was never really meant for the stage, which makes matters even more confusing.
But despite such hang-ups, clearly, the show must go on, even if it means tarting up a Depression-era script for the posh one-percenters of the 21st century. With most of the 1933 film version’s pre-Code wisecracking rough-edges smoothed out and its slyly titillating charm wiped away, this tone-deaf version of 42nd Street features a cast of middling performers who leave you wondering whether any of them have ever seen the 1933 version.
The central problem with this version is obvious from the get-go: it’s the role of Peggy Sawyer, the naive chorus girl from Allentown, PA, who lucks into a starring role in the Broadway musical “Pretty Lady” after the leading lady Dorothy Brock breaks her ankle. Sawyer here is played by Claire Halse, who misses the mark on every level: for starters, she’s way too proficient as a dancer and actress and way too ambitious; she has none of the effortless charisma and allure of the original Peggy, played by the lithesome Ruby Keeler, whose own obvious acting and tap-dancing deficiencies were used to perfection in the Hollywood film version (the whole cynical “talent is luck” message of the original seems lost here).
The imperious Brock, the leading lady who in the original film version breaks her ankle in the midst of a drunken tirade (here the broken ankle comes boringly booze-free), is botched by Bonnie Langford’s shrieking banshee vocals (on the title tune “42nd Street” especially) and generally badly overplayed prima donna aggression. All the playful nuance from the original film version has been squeezed out: from the generic set design, which can’t compare to the aesthetic brilliance of the original, to the anachronistic sartorial sense (Peggy is dressed like Mary Poppins, and there isn’t a single pencil-thin gangster mustache among the male cast members). Although no one really expects this 2018 version to compete with the 1933 original, this wrongheaded attempt at 42nd Street for the stage could have at least tried. Not recommended.