It seems that my musical "Pinocchio" is a success! The word on the street today is that it has become the Lyric Theatre's fastest selling show in over three years.
This is very heartening, as you can imagine. I am also very proud of the fact that one of my previous musicals, "Hansel & Grettel", produced by the Lyric back in 1999, still holds the record as the theatre's most financially successful production ever. Those were the good old days at the Lyric Theatre when a show could run for nine weeks and do 97% business - recent times have been dark and difficult, so today's news of "Pinocchio"s success is, hopefully, an indiction that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel.
Meanwhile, a review of the show has appeared online prior to publication in The Stage:
The enchanting but cautionary tale of the wooden puppet who longs to be a real boy, has been brought triumphantly to new life in Paul Boyd’s reworking of his 2003 musical. This sharp, stylish production crosses the generation gap, contriving to be at once cute and sophisticated, offering a gentle lesson for the little ones, arch humour for the adults and a feast of treats for the eye and the ear, via Conleth White’s dazzling lighting, Sarah Johnston’s crisp choreography and Pat Musgrave’s fantastical costumes.
Stuart Marshall’s set plunges us simultaneously inside the belly of the great whale, which is threatening Pinnocchio’s village, and into the plush kitsch of New York’s Radio City Music Hall, a setting which determines the tone of the evening.
Niki Doherty is a sweetly appealing Pinocchio, whose naughty tantrums hit a note of instant recognition with the audience. Richard Orr’s Geppetto captures the agony of a parent of a lost child and Mark Asante excels as the overgrown but dim-witted Mr. Cat.
Tommy Wallace adds real dash and class to proceedings as the conniving Mr. Fox, while Christina Nelson brings the house down as the punk-haired, Thatcher-voiced Blue Fairy, sprinkling stardust and nightshade on good and bad deeds.
