Hello Dolly!, London Palladium Review ★★★★★

By her own admission, Dolly Levi is a meddler. A charming, warm, irresistible meddler, but a meddler nonetheless.‘Some people paint, some sow, I meddle’ she states early on in Hello, Dolly! Matchmaker, fixer and all-round smooth operator, the irrepressible middle-aged widow of Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart’s 1963 musical is brought to life by Imelda Staunton in a characteristically transporting performance brimming with fun, depth, humanity and not a little mischief.

Imelda Staunton in Hello, Dolly! Photo: Manuel Harlan
Still touchingly in love with her deceased husband, she knows she must move on and she’s set her eyes on the tightfisted, crusty half-a-millionaire businessman Horace Vandergelder (Andy Lyman); but getting her man means re-organising a few other lives, including that of the widowed milliner Irene Molloy (a luminous Jenna Russell), Vandergelder’s exploited clerks Cornelius Hackl (Harry Hepple) and Barnaby Tucker (Tyrone Huntley), his whining niece Ermengarde (Emily Langham), and her penniless artist boyfriend Ambrose (Michael Lin).

And so we embark on a roller-coaster ride, through various settings in Yonkers and New York City, brought vividly to life by Rae Smith’s detailed, eye-filling, smoothly changing sets, which involve a steam train and a tram, and Finn Ross’s gliding video projections of photographic images of turn of the century New York.

Emily Lane, Tyrone Huntley, Jenna Russell, Harry Hepple in Hello, Dolly! Photo: Manuel Harlan
Directed by the prolific Dominic Cooke, who last worked with Imelda Staunton in the National Theatre's landmark production of Sondheim’s Follies, this Hello, Dolly! is meticulously staged as a traditional musical, the improbabilities of its plot subsumed into its irresistible drive. It moves along at tight clip helped by Bill Deamer’s jolly choreography, which reaches heights of delirious zaniness in the second Act’s waiters gallop.

Ensemble of Hello, Dolly! Photo: Manuel Harlan
For all its big numbers – 'Put on Your Sunday Clothes', 'Before the Parade Passes By' – it’s the title number we are really waiting for; and when 'Hello, Dolly!' finally comes, it doesn’t disappoint: a resplendent Imelda Staunton in a bejewelled emerald green gown, slowly descends the grand staircase of the Harmonia Gardens restaurant, graciously greeting old friends and in turn being warmly greeted by them. It starts gently and gradually builds up to its full glory.

This sumptuous production of Hello, Dolly! has many virtues, not least the nuanced performance of its 21-piece orchestra, under the direction of Nicholas Skilbeck. But it’s Imelda Staunton’s performance that gives it heart and lifts if above average West End fare.

Staunton’s Dolly embodies the triumph of life over adversity. A force of nature, she passes like a whirlwind through the lives of those around her, arranging and rearranging and somehow making everything right. She is loveable, infuriating, funny and moving all at once, and her singing ranges from deeply affecting wistfulness in 'Look, Love in My Window', to full throated belting out of the big numbers. It’s a mesmerising, life-enhancing performance.

This is a traditional musical production that doesn’t attempt to take you anywhere you haven’t been; but with a performance of the calibre of Staunton’s, a first rate supporting cast, a well-drilled, lively ensemble and a full on staging that never flags, it's deeply enjoyable and more than justifies its revival.