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Elena Roger, the new Evita, the new big star discovery, was on Woman's Hour last week answering Jenni Murray's questions about Eva Peron - the sex, the politics and the sexual politics. It was a struggle to listen to - Roger is Argentinian, the accent is thick and the English is broken - but it was possible to make out that one of her parents was a Peronist and the other a socialist.
Both, however, would have been moved by their daughter's appearance on a carved stone balcony, wearing a meringue of white tulle, singing 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' in the title role of Evita, the Tim Rice / Andrew Lloyd Webber revival that opened at the Adelphi Theatre last week.
Roger even looks like Eva Peron: the profile is perfect; she is tiny, like a little bird. Neat and polite, she has a beautiful voice that veers between nightingale-sweet and robust belting. There is no dialogue in Evita; things roll along from song to song - the unknown actress sleeping her way to social significance until she encounters the soldier and politician Colonel Juan Peron (Philip Quast) and sings to him, 'I'd be Surprisingly Good for You'.
The Rainbow Tour of Europe sees her clambering upon a pile of Louis Vuitton cases; a radiant, charismatic ambassadress. In Buenos Aires she stands in squares and hands out money to a crowd (rather a small one given the scale of the production). And when, suffering from cancer, she starts to fade and stagger, 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' takes on a different, genuinely lachrymose meaning altogether.
Evita was the last show upon which Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice collaborated, and 28 years on it has been re-orchestrated. The songs are still lilting and more-ish but sometimes it's bolder and faster than before. There is no question you will come out humming. And it's timely: as I passed a pub on my way home I heard England football fans singing their very own message to their team. It goes, 'Don't try to be Argentina'.
Thanks to Gregor for forwarding this review.
© Telegraph Group Limited
