Review: The Carole King Musical is "utterly and irresistibly" Beautiful in Eastbourne

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, until Sat 27 Aug

Beautiful! Yes, utterly and irresistibly. The Carole King Musical fills the Congress Theatre this week with one of the greatest playlists in musical history, and it is a night of absolute joy.

The Congress first-night audience on Tuesday were of a certain age, all reliving a couple of decades of their late 20th Century lives. But Carole King is timeless. She had written her first hit, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, at just 17, and this year she touches 80 – and in between, the classic numbers have simply poured out. This is the back catalogue of all our lives.

Indeed, audience members less familiar with the King repertoire will find themselves quite startled. From Be-Bop-a-Lula, through The Locomotion, to One Fine Day, with many more in between. It’s a swirl of musical styles, from ballads to rhythm n’ blues, country & western and blazing rock.

In the title role, Molly-Grace Cutler holds the stage with her characterisation – a contradiction between self-doubting, self-effacing writer/composer and commanding performer. At the keyboard, she can segue in an instant from a slightly Dylan-esque You’ve Got a Friend, to leading the entire-company finale of A Natural Woman.

The re-created bands and singers are so alarmingly authentic that you wonder if they haven’t secretly smuggled the original artists in through the stage door. The girls’ rendering of the Shirelles Will You Love Me Tomorrow is just breathtaking, and the guys bring an engaging, assured feel to the Drifters’ numbers. And there’s a simply marvellous Locomotion on roller skates from Naomi Alade.

Carole’s signature album Tapestry is among the top twenty albums of all time, although ironically the show includes only a snatch of the title song itself – perhaps a little too reflective and personal for Beautiful’s largely upbeat playlist.

Cutler’s portrayal is astonishing. She is the embodiment of Carole King, with all the nuances and contradictions, gifts and frailties. The challenge is that the role requires a certain underplaying: this modest, slight figure in cardigan and flat sneakers, sometimes self-doubting and always very human.

The narrative, staying very close to the actual biography, takes us on Carole’s journey from high school and piano practice monitored by mother-hen mum – a lovely cameo for Claire Greenway – through the singer-songwriter career which rushes up on her. And a nicely nuanced Sorrel Jordan as Carole’s best friend and confidante. Interwoven with that career is a King-Goffin marriage and family life, lurching and stumbling between crises and between ever more sensational performing heights.

The show, very much a re-working of the original Beautiful production but, dare I say, very much more engaging, comes from Theatre Royal Bath Productions, with Nikolai Foster, highly regarded artistic director at the Leicester Curve, at the helm. Nik’s directorial style, collaborative and centrally involved, is hallmarked here, and both company and creatives give everything for the cause.

Steve Sidwell’s very authentic orchestrations are exultantly delivered under musical supervisor Sarah Travis. Movement is assured, with choreographer Leah Hill taking full advantage of a brilliantly flexible set design by Frankie Bradshaw, full of seamless scene changes.

The company has a nicely egalitarian feel – extending, for instance, to the CVs in the programme, simply alphabetical and without star billing for leads. Tom Milner skilfully handles the complicated character of Carole’s husband Gerry Goffin, unfaithful but not unlikeable. Seren Sandham-Davies as collaborator and confidante Cynthia Weill has sensational vocals. Jos Slovick’s Donnie, the fourth member of the love quartet, does well with a slightly underwritten part. And Garry Robson is the warm avuncular music producer in a wheelchair.

And playing us out, the entire joyous company has the entire ecstatic auditorium on its feet: I Feel the Earth Move. Yep, we did.