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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Des McAnuff, Sergio Trujillo (choreographer).
Cast: Ryan Molloy, Stephen Ashfield, Philip Bulcock, Glenn Carter, Simon Adkins, Suzy Bastone, Jye Frasca, Tee Jaye, Stuart Milligan, Joseph Prouse, Michelle Bishop
Description: Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice's play about the career of Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons. Directed by Des McAnuff.
Times: Mon-Sat 7.30pm, mats Tue, Sat 2.30pm, from Jan 12, Tue-Sat 7.30pm, mats Tue, Sat & Sun 3pm (extra mats Oct 29, Dec 18, 21, 23, 30 & 31, 2.30pm, no perfs Dec 24 & 25, no eve perf Dec 31), booking to Oct 24 2010
Price: £20-£60 until Mar 29, 2010, then £20-£62.50
Trains: Tube: Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road 
Phone: 0870850 9191
Website: www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk
Extra info: Air Conditioning, Pub
Oh what a night: Philip Bulcock as Nick Massi, Glenn Carter (Tommy DeVito) Ryan Molloy (Frankie Valli) and Stephen Ashfield (Bob Gaudio).
Survivors: the cast as the Four Seasons in the true rags-to-riches story that has become a Broadway hit
Frankie goes to London: Valli with his sons and Molloy, right, on the opening night at the Prince Edward Theatre
After those sagging lines of hagio-graphic tribute musicals to old rock'n' rollers and bland bands, what a refreshing change to meet up with this Broadway triumph.
Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman, best known for his Woody Allen film scripts, have injected regular slugs of trenchant truth-telling into their musical biography of the blue-collar, Italian-American group from New Jersey. Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons scored big hits in the Sixties which have given them golden oldie status for decades.
Valli, the lead singer with the soaring falsetto, whose vocal range and gymnastics are here brilliantly recalled by Ryan Molloy, may have been as clean as driven ambition allowed. But he admits in a programme note that as "younger kids" the group were not exactly strangers to "trouble". The musical demonstrates in the sometimes tense spaces between doo-wop and R and B songs with pop chorals, how the boys variously spent spells in jail, maintained Mafia connections, cultivated gambling debts and unpaid tax bills, quarrelled violently over one prized girl in particular, suffered the drug-related death of a daughter and finally fell apart.
The group's swaggering founder, Glenn Carter's Tommy DeVito, outraged his Four Seasons room-mate Nick Massi by only changing his under-wear every third day and regularly urinating in hotel wash-basins. It seems also that the group's hit songs, such as Sherry, Big Girls Don't Cry, Walk Like A Man and Bye, Bye Baby were conservative and timeless, more about urging both sexes to put on the right, macho show, than describing the struggle to make it after being brought up in New Jersey.
On a stage displaying the now traditional furniture for musicals - a steel-framed scaffold, with steel-mesh screens, spiral stair-case and upper gallery - Jersey Boys unfolds against a backcloth of industrial chimneys, telegraph poles and lush sunsets. Pop art on LCD screens and neon signs help set the changing scene as the Four Seasons tour their way into manual-worker, American hearts. The group appealed to "guys who were flipping burgers and pumping gas and girls behind the counter at the diner".
Des McAnuff 's slickly animated production takes far too long to reach the glory days, having spent excessive time with Carter's DeVito, the tough-talking, self-admiring founder who recruits Frankie and song-writer, Stephen Ashfield's oddly insipid Bob Gaudio. The show does, however, at last fly high with some of those hit anthems, dynamically staged.
Molloy exercises an arresting, powerhouse of a voice, that ascends from tenor to falsetto in emotional bounds and scores with Fallen Angel, sung for Frankie's dead daughter, his back to the audience. It is Frankie, too, who vainly fights to keep the group together, while Philip Bulcock's ironically charismatic yet peripheral group member charts the reasons for the group's break-up with laconic flippancy.
Still I do doubt whether Jersey Boys will make it over here. The life-stories and the songs strike me as being curiously timeless, remote and unreverberative for British audiences. This may be an American import too many.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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Went on my birthday, which was incidently 1 year that the show had been running, and they were awesome. We're going again in May! AND the guys revealed on the news on March 17th that they've all signed for another year- they can't be doing too badly then! These guys were amazing, orginally I only went as a Ryan Molloy fan and now I love them all in equal measure (...well, maybe not quite. I hope these guys keep doing this together for many more years.
- Stacey, Bristol, England
This show is simply wonderful and not just for American audiences! I urge everyone to go and see it for a fabulous night at the theatre.
- Deborah, Philadelphia USA
I have to agree with the posted reader comments. I've seen the show twice and enjoyed it tremendously. The four leads were all terrific actors and singers. The band was excellent, as was the production staging.
- Leanne, Rochester Hills, Michigan USA.
I must disagree with your critic, the Jersey boys is brilliant and the British
audience seem to be enjoying it as every time I have been to see it the theatre has been full and the cast are given a standing ovation at the end
of the show. Also Stephen Ashfield is not insipid in the role of Bob Gaudio
he is fantastic.
- Mary, London
Wonderful show, have seen twice going back for a third time. Best show in London at this moment in time. The talent of the 4 singers is amazing.
- Pat Gladding, Orpington. Kent
