Ben Brantley Reviews Sheridan Smith in FUNNY GIRL

Was surprised to visit the New York Times' theatre page and see that Brantley himself had reviewed the Menier Chocolate Factory's production of FUNNY GIRL directed by Michael Mayer and starring Sheridan Smith. He is positive about Smith with some reservations and is otherwise negative on the production itself, including the rest of the cast. I think it's pretty interesting that even as much as he clearly enjoys Smith's natural talents, he can't help but addressing the fact she is quite miscast as Fanny Brice:

Ms. Smith is, no doubt, aware of the stamp with which Ms. Streisand embossed these songs. And there’s not a single Streisandesque intonation in her Fanny Brice.

As she embodies Fanny’s rise from a klutzy dreamer in Brooklyn to a Ziegfeld brand name, she often substitutes a wistful, hopeful reediness for the all-conquering brass with which Ms. Streisand endowed the role. She performs “People,” the show’s best-known number, with a melting delicacy that makes it utterly her own.

But a melting Fanny Brice gives “Funny Girl” a soft center, and the production as a whole acquires a soggy sentimentality that reveals the show’s age. Isobel Lennart’s original book has been retooled (with an emphasis on the benignly risqué by the Broadway polymath Harvey Fierstein. But as a portrait of an embattled woman pulled between the demands of love and success, “Funny Girl” still exudes the tear-stained hoariness of a black-and-white weepie from the 1930s.

New York Times Review

Updated On: 2/15/16 at 08:03 PM

You're right roscoe(au), I changed my description from "lukewarm" to "negative." His description of the supporting cast and the production designs are pretty damning, and it sounds like the book is still a mess. It seems to me like this is the kind of revival that needs to be completely re-conceived much like Mendes and Marshall's production of CABARET. They should especially try to workshop it and do an out-of-town try out the way Sher had planned with the Ambrose version. Even then, the book might be sort of unfixable.

There's a reason Funny Girl has never been revived.

There was no way that a Funny Girl revival would happen here with Sheridan. There are too many well known theatre actresses who could do that part justice and actually sell tickets.

That would ruin the character in my opinion. The finale is there to show that Fanny isn't a victim. But to be fair, 95% of the show is flashback. So they could easily do that. Everybody likes to imagine themselves worse off than they are to garner sympathy, after all.

It could be very easy to understand with a good book writer to punctuate. Maybe even on a little bit of My Man in there before she decides not to take the victim route? That could be interesting.

The really startling truth is: the show has almost no plot. When you watch the film now, the second act is shockingly devoid of incident, all about what Nick will do, not Fanny. It's a kind of a meandering, air-brushed look at someone who -- no one will admit this -- wasn't really remotely like the Streisand character. But we now see the character as Fanny-Barbra. The only way to make it work is to start over, and to put some missing truth-telling in this fairly gritty story. And I've said something that's heresy: the lyrics are often bizarre. To this day, I couldn't tell you why this woman sings "life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter" simply because she wants to leave the show she has fought hard to get into and chase a man. It starts out, no one can see she's the greatest star, then she becomes a star, then she bitches that she shouldn't have to perform because a con man has fallen in love with her. It just isn't honest, and the switch midway through act one from her career ascendancy to her demand to have a love life is false.

Updated On: 2/16/16 at 07:46 AM

Ugh, I literally bought the last seat available on the days I'm in London in April and I never buy full-price tickets. Considering StubHub-ing them now since I usually align fairly close to Brantley in his reviews.