Tina: The Tina Turner Musical creates a world that is aspirational, inspirational, and, most importantly, sing-along-able.
It made sure of one universal truth: that revenge may be sweet, but executive producing a West End show about your place in music history, your unstoppable determination, and how much of a loser your ex husband was, is even sweeter.
In Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Tina Turner made sure to do just that.
Oh, and she made time to mention her legs. Tina would not like you to forget about her legs.
We lost Tina Turner in May 2023, but her spirit sings on through her executive production of Tina the Musical, and through the electric power of Karis Anderson who personified the legend on stage.
Anderson’s vocal performance was astounding, but her physicality in embodying Tina’s iconic stage stance was what took her performance to another level. It made me want to contact a shaman about whether spirits can be re-incarnated directly into an adult body. It was uncanny.
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical succeeds beyond a doubt in its mission to tell Tina’s story in its totality.
It doesn’t shy away from the harshness of her childhood, or from the domestic abuse she faced from Ike Turner.
I wouldn’t expect a West End version of Proud Mary to include heart wrenching scenes of a broken marriage, but Tina: The Tina Turner Musical somehow pulls that off, largely in part to Mark Thompson’s Tony Award winning set design which carries the audience from Tennessee, to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, to London’s own Abbey Road.
Speaking of Phil Spector, I was surprised that, in a musical as “girl power” as Tina, Phil Spector came across well.
Maybe he didn’t attack Tina, but I’m sure Katori Hall, Tina the Musical’s playwright, was aware of his infamous murder charge by the time she wrote the book.
An interesting creative decision from a show centring women’s stories.
On that note, the show was enormously fun, but it was not perfect.
Mainly because it was haunted by my ever present West End torment: accents.
If you cannot do an accent, do not do it. It is more distracting to hear someone who is struggling than to hear someone who is British.
Earl Gregory, who in this case is South African, as Richard Bullock had a rich, warm, singing voice, but it was easy to forget that when listening to him wrestle through southern sentences.
I hope he gets many other singing roles that do not demand a Tennessee drawl.
The musical also sometimes found itself veering into saccharine, which, as a jukebox musical, was bound to happen at some point.
Please, producers everywhere, people walking down the aisle with candles does not a moving moment make.
Why people keep doing this, I do not know.
That said, by and large, I felt engaged, enlivened, and grateful to be reminded of just how many iconic tunes Tina Turner put out in her lifetime.
Other highlights of the show included the delightful Jairus McClanahan as Raymond Hill, who I hope will be on to more than his one scene stealing number, and Shyanna Ononiwu as Young Anna Mae Bullock who was perfectly convincing as a talented and theatrical girl.
I would encourage anyone who likes Rock & Roll to see this riotous musical of self conviction and perseverance.
And legs.
Don’t forget about Tina’s legs.
Tina the Musical is at the Aldwych Theatre, tickets are available through February 2024.
