Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Ben Heathcote, Jenna Lee-James, Jade Ewen, Michael McKell, Tiffany Groves, Andy Rees, Michael Antrobus, Joshua Dever, Amy Diamond, Rosie Fletcher, Rosie Heath, Sinead Long, Craig Mather, Tom Millen, Darryl Paul, Ricky Rojas, Lindsay Tierney, Spin.

Rod Stewart certainly belongs in the pantheon of all-time greats of performers that have bridged both sides of The Atlantic Ocean. His music is as popular as it perhaps ever was and still gets performed live by a man whose life off stage is as interesting to millions as the music he has helped make musically immortal. That immortality will perhaps continue long after the end of the next decade and beyond with Ben Elton’s latest foray into the world of musical theatre in The Rod Stewart Musical, Tonight’s The Night.

Bouyed after much success with We Will Rock You, still pulling in the audiences after nearly a dozen years, Ben Elton turns his hand to perhaps arguably a harder act to follow, the story of a young shy and sensitive man who makes a pact with the Devil and ends up with the soul of Rod Stewart. The mild mannered, poetry loving man disappears and gets possessed by the spirit and the songs of a man who played with the Faces and became a renowned solo act.

One of the great successes of the night came in the shape of Jenna Lee-James as the hero’s real object of love, Mary. This captivating actor has long been part of the We Will Rock You cast at London’s Dominion Theatre and has been lauded and praised for her portrayal as the vivacious and playfully sarcastic and full of world weary scepticism Scaramouche, in Tonight’s The Night, Ms. James bought all those years of experience of performing to an expectant audience and gave an outstanding execution of song and dance that lit up the Empire Theatre. For anybody who has caught this vivacious actor on stage before it wasn’t hard to see why she was bought into Ben Elton’s latest stage musical. Full of fun, a fantastic voice which has matured beyond measure since she first stepped out as the character Meatloaf in We Will Rock You, a real and blinding presence on stage.

Although the music of Rod Stewart isn’t perhaps as adaptable for the stage as say Queen’s is, the audience were treated to some excellent music from the house band, which included Griff Johnson, Steve White, Andy Taylor-Zebel, Lael Goldberg, Alex Meadows and Matt Byrne, and tracks such as the kicking Maggie May, the superb You Wear It Well and the three part version of Stay With Me. Maggie May and You Wear It Well were sung with great force and conviction and the interaction between Ben Heathcote and Tiffany Groves on the set two opener was a great delight.

The Rod Stewart Musical, Tonight’s The Night was in the end worth waiting for, even if for some great tunes performed by the cast and a stand out performance by a woman of sheer magnitude and quality.

Ian D. Hall