FOR one of Chicago’s leading ladies, this tour date is like coming home. Twinnie-Lee Moore first appeared on the stage of the Grand Opera House in her home city of York as a youngster, dancing in pantomime.
Now she’s back, strutting her stuff in the Razzle Dazzle musical, as one of the two murderesses vying for headlines and the lucrative career that comes with celebrity.
She’s Velma Kelly to Emma Barton’s equally devious Roxie Hart in this marvellous Kander and Ebb musical that’s famous for Bob Fosse’s finger-clicking, hip-wiggling, pelvic-thrusting choreography.
Moore and Barton are well matched in both the singing and dancing departments.
They’re sassy, sexy and slick – three attributes the roles demand.
But Chicago is more than its leading ladies, as the story of the two women’s fight for publicity is presented in a series of vaudeville turns with such songs as All That Jazz, Cell Block Tango and Mama Morton’s, When You’re Good To Mama.
The show is only as good as the entire cast (and, we mustn’t forget, the orchestra) and here the ensemble sing, dance and act their socks off in a highenergy production.
Adam Stafford’s put-upon Amos Hart, the cuckolded husband whom nobody notices, elicits plenty of sympathetic aaahs as Mr Cellophane, while Wendy Lee Purdy’s Mama Morton is one tough cookie who knows how to make a quick buck.
And then there’s Jimmy Osmond, an usual casting as crooked lawyer Billy Flynn perhaps, but it pays off in numbers such as All I Care About, complete with ostrich fan-waving chorus girls.
■ Until Saturday. Tickets 0844-8472322.
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