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Shed no tears for Tim Rice or Andrew Lloyd Webber, as Michael Grandage's production of their musical about Eva Peron displays every sign of being a copper bottom success all over again, 20 years since it was first seen in a dazzling production by Hal Prince.
Grandage's workmanlike staging - when he was at the Donmar he was an innovative director of musicals, but, as his production of Guys and Dolls shows, on the West End stage he plays safe - does not conceal the flaws, something Hal Prince achieved brilliantly.
There are no coups de theatre on offer, as there was with the Prince staging. The book, as so often with musicals, not the music, is the problem. Eva Duarte, a small time radio and film actress, sleeps her way to the top, secures sleazy army officer Juan Peron, who became president of Argentina, as her prize catch, goes on a tour of Europe, gets cancer, and then dies. But of the work on behalf of the country's dispossessed that made Eva Peron a saint for the people or Argentina - she was their Princess Diana, their Mother Theresa - we get virtually nothing.
Argentinian actress Elena Roger, who plays Eva, more than makes up for that, bringing a wonderfully raw edge of passion to Lloyd Webber's frequently rather bland music. She can also dance and inhabits Eva brilliantly, suggesting far more depth than the material provides.
The part made a star of Elaine Paige, and could do the same for her. As Peron, Philip Quast gives her sound, sonorous support, but Matt Rawle, as the everyman narrator is merely pretty, smiles a lot and sings in a hideous quasi-American nasal drawl. The money should keep rolling in for some time to come.
© Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited.
