Viva Forever! opens on West End, and the first reviews are in

Yes, it finally happened. The Jennifer Saunders penned Spice Girls musical Viva Forever! opened on the West End in London last night, and while there was certainly a furore of press activity and a party atmosphere surrounding the event, the first reviews haven't been so kind.

While the show is a jukebox style a la Mamma Mia! (what is it with Judy Craymer and exclamation marks), with the Spice Girls back catalogue filling in the music and Ab Fab legend and half of comedy duo French and Saunders Jennifer Saunders covering the book, the plot isn't that far removed from the story of the girls themselves. Lead character Viva and her girl band are launched to fame via reality TV before Viva gets plucked from the group and chosen to become the next world pop icon, and Viva then sees the effects fame has on your friendships and family. So it's easy to see where songs such as 'Mama' and 'Wannabe' fit in.

The reviews hitting the British papers this morning are mostly in the one and two star end of the scale. Paul Taylor from The Independent expecting a less than stellar run for the show saying "Viva Forever! forever? I rather think not". Charles Spencer from The Telegraph was particularly cutting saying: "I’ll tell you what I wanted, what I really, really wanted – I wanted this terrible show to stop". Reaction on Twitter is mixed, with some people loving it, and others hating it, so it looks like its become Marmite The Musical. Even with all this reaction, curiosity would still get the better of some, and I know it's definitely on my to-do list next time I'm London bound.

Story by EI Team | 09:00 | Wednesday 12th December 2012 | Theatre

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Comments

• Balorina

  My fave review yet has been from the Mirror. "It contains about as much feminism as a Taliban recruitment video."

  Posted 11:49 | Wed 12th Dec 2012

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