REVIEW: Jersey Boys at the Lyceum, Sheffield

Blair Gibson, Dalton Wood, Michael Pickering and Christopher Short in Jersey Boys. Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg/Birgit and Ralf Brinkhoff

For audiences unfamiliar with The Four Seasons’ incredible back catalogue, Jersey Boys is a musical education as well as a toe-tapping night of nostalgia.

Big Girls Don’t Cry? That’s them. Bye Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye)? Them too. Working My Way Back to You; December 1963 (Oh What A Night); the Northern Soul floor filler Beggin’ (put your loving hand out baby)… they’re all The Four Seasons, falsetto king Frankie Valli their diminutive frontman.

Luckily the largely silver-haired audience who packed into The Lyceum to see the start of the jukebox musical’s two week run were fans, singing along and dancing in their seats on an evocative trip down memory lane recalling not just the songs but the sequin suits, choreography, hairstyles and dresses of their younger years.

Michael Pickering plays the lead, capturing perfectly the Noo-Joysey accent and high nasal notes that saw Valli plucked from obscurity by band founder Tommy DeVito back in 1954.

Michael Pickering, Blair Gibson, Dalton Wood, Lewis Griffiths in Jersey Boys. Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg/Birgit and Ralf Brinkhoff

Blair Gibson is affably likeable as clean-cut songwriter Bob Gaudio, an old head on young shoulders who, together with music producer Bob Crewe – funny and flamboyant in the hands of Michael Levi – penned the unique Italian-American doo-wop songs that took the band to the top.

Even for those who don’t remember the 1960s and 70s, the show offers a glimpse of a golden cultural and musical era, much like last year’s Carole King musical Beautiful, when a staggering canon of songs were penned in hit factories by prolific musical geniuses – and chart success came as much from the spin of a dime as it did from years of sheer, hard graft.

The Frankie Valli story itself is as absorbing as the songs, sadly without the harmony. DeVito mingled with mobsters, spent time in jail, and racked up gambling debts and a million dollar tax bill for the band which Valli and Gaudio honourably took on. Valli’s daughter Francine died from a drugs overdose aged just 20, a tragedy relayed in a scene which doesn’t quite deliver the emotional impact it ought.

But there’s humour too, much of it courtesy of Valli’s first wife Mary Delgado played by Emma Crossley.

Jersey Boys is at the Lyceum, Sheffield, until Saturday, March 4. Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg/Birgit and Ralf Brinkhoff

“You’re Italian. You gotta end in a vowel,” she tells him as they discuss changing his name from Francis Castelluccio to Frankie Valley. “Delgad-O. Castellucci-O. Pizz-A.”

“I’m gonna be as big as Sinatra,” he informs her later. “Only if you stand on a chair,” she shoots back.

Jersey Boys has been running for nearly 20 years and played on Broadway for 12. A West End revival is currently booking until October. It’s won Tony awards, a Grammy, and a Lawrence Olivier Award. While the touring show lacks the breathtaking big production impact of London or New York – perhaps the constraints of smaller theatres mean it’s unfair to expect it would – it’s still a sentimental yet high-energy, crowd-pleasing celebration of an exhilarating era in rock and roll.

And thanks to a talented cast and a timeless collection of tunes, it’s sure to leave audiences humming their favourite songs long after the curtain falls.

Jersey Boys is at the Lyceum, Sheffield, until Saturday, March 4.