Pretty Woman is first an foremost an iconic film which premiered in 1990, staring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It tells the story of young street worker and her chance encounter with a billionaire, which ultimately throws her into a new world of The Beverly Wilshire Hotel, expensive shops, opera trips and gala nights. The musical stays with this story line but with the added glitz and glamour of musical numbers which both enhance the story and allow the audience to fall in love with the characters even more.

Pretty Woman The Musical originally premiered in Londons Piccadilly Theatre on February 13th 2020 before officially opening on March 2nd 2020. The show closed on March 16, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened with the same principal cast on July 8, 2021 at the Savoy Theatre and ran until June 2023. The UK and Ireland tour then opened on October 17th 2023 in The Alexandra in Birmingham and will tour until September 2024, ending at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield.

We were lucky enough to be able to catch a performance of the UK tour at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury on July 30th 2024 and it did not disappoint!

The music by by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance lends it’s self perfectly to the era of the show and allows the performers to show off some impressive vocals whilst not distracting from the story line and important moments. ‘Welcome To Hollywood’ is a perfect opening to the show where we feel transported across the Atlantic to the bright and bustling Hollywood Boulevard. This number also introduces our lead characters, Vivian & Edward. This show also does not disappoint with the power ballards such as, ‘Anywhere but here’, ‘Freedom’ and ‘I can’t go back’.

The cast is made up of 25 members, some seasoned performers such as Amber Davies in the role of Vivian and Natalie Paris as Kit de Luca. However, we also had the exciting opportunity to see Lila Falce-Bass in her professional debut singing the fantastic ‘A Night at the Opera’.

We did see two understudies and both of these highlighted exactly why understudies are so often the unsung heroes of musical theatre. Elliott David Parkes, took on the mammoth role of Edward and lived up to all the expectation. His vocal was beautifully warm but also powerful. You felt connected to him from the outset and felt there was more to him than the straight up, money orientated business man he claimed to be. Stuart Maciver, played Philip Stuckey in the performance we saw and he was everything he needed to be for the sleazy lawyer, especially in his treatment of Vivian at the Polo and in the final scene. 

Amber Davies, gives a very lovable performance as the young street worker Vivian Ward. Her vocals are once again flawless, however we felt we lost a little of her beautiful acting through song during the end of ‘I can’t go back’. Her relationship with Edward, Mr Thompson & Kit was so believable, you truly wanted the best for her.

Ore Oduba & Natalie Paris, give great performances as Mr Thompson & Kit de Luca, both of them providing impressive vocals and Oduba showcasing his Strictly Come Dancing past during ‘On a night like tonight’. Special mention has to go to Noah Harrison who played Giulio, the innocent yet hilariously funny bell boy, we found ourselves hoping he would enter a scene, as at times he really did steal the show, in the best way.

The choreography by Jerry Mitchell (who also directed this production) lent itself well to the era of the performance and was well executed by a extremely strong ensemble. We felt at times the choreography could have been pushed further, given the talent on stage, at times it felt a little ‘safe’, however the vision of the numbers was always clear. The ‘fight’ scene between Vivian and Philip left a lot to be desired and we felt this was a shame as Maciver had worked so hard to build up his aggressive character, but the final confrontation was quite poor.

The set, designed by David Rockwell, was impressive in its size and grandeur. The scene changes happened seamlessly and were well choreographed and performed by the ensemble, often moving in time to a song. Although this is a touring production, the set fitted perfectly to the stage and it was clear that Rockwell had understood the brief and constraints often faced by touring productions.

The lighting design both enhanced and embellished the onstage action and sectioned the scenes incredibly well. The actors knew exactly where to find their lights, an often difficult task for touring productions which have multiple venues. Unfortunately, the night we saw it there were quite a lot of ‘opening night teething problems’ with the sound, quite often we would miss the opening words of Edwards dialogue as his mic wasn’t switched on. There were also a number of occasions when feedback could be heard during songs, over the top of the impressive orchestra (lead by Griff Johnson).

The costumes, designed by Tom Rogers, were perfection. Not only did he emulate the iconic costumes from the movie for Vivian and Edward, he also clothed every member of the company in perfect attire for their character and the era. His costumes allowed the performers to dance and move around the stage effortlessly, but you truly felt transported to Hollywood and the bright colours and garish patterns you would see there. We would have liked to have seen Vivian’s second wig (the brown one she wears for ‘Luckiest girl in the world’) styled slightly better as, at times, the side of her face was completely covered and it appeared that Davies was trying to get the hair out of her face. 

Pretty Woman The Musical is a feel good evening of entertainment with some stand out principle and cameo roles. It’s not one to be missed if you want to be transported to ‘Anywhere but here’.

Review by Jenni and Will Rye

Pretty Woman is on at The Marlowe Theatre until the 3rd August. You can find out more about the show and book tickets here.

If you like this review you might also like my review for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which is coming to the Marlowe Theatre.