Mamma Mia!, Free Rain Theatre Company, The Q

 

Abba is part of my foundation. Their victory at Eurovision happened 6 months after I was born, and it was a rare occasion when I was growing up when Abba wasn't on the LP somewhere (my parents and both sets of grandparents had a "best of abba" LP and various other singles available as comfort music for toddler Simon, and I got given "Abba the Album" and was taken to "Abba the Movie" shortly after my Brother was born). They've remained pretty inescapable, the combination of bouncy pop and emotional yearning in the background, and so, when I was first in London in 2001, it was inevitable that the one show I paid full-price tickets for was the musical that combined 23 Abba classics with a pretty reasonable plotline and some energetic performances. Since then, there's been two movies (the first one seen after the session of "The Dark Knight" I wanted to see was sold out, and subsequently shown to my husband relatively early in our relationship after I'd filled him with enough Galliano to not object to Pierce Brosnan, the second surpassing it by throwing in Cher, being better shot so that Croatia looks like a better Greek Island than the actual Greek island in the first movie and by generally being the Godfather 2 of jukebox musicals) and a couple of professional tours and now ... Queanbeyan!

In the fundamentals, this is a simple fun show, tying together the songs through splitting them across a dozen principals, divided into 4 seperate trios, three older women, three older men, three younger men, three younger women - the older group normally getting the more dramatic emotional songs, the younger the more bubblegum pop side of things. Given they've got the bulk of the more emotional material, the olders are generally written better, even though the men slightly suffer with getting songs obviously written for female voices (the one male-original-vocal song, "Does your mother know", is reshuffled to being female-led in an attempt to detoxify the somewhat creepy lyrics) though plot-originating Sophie does get a reasonable amount of personality as she searches for her unknown father through planning a meeting with her mum's three long-lost-lovers in the days before her wedding. 

Free Rain's production serves the material well, with a strong cast across the board. Jarrad West draws on the skills of the cast to personify the various cast-and-ensemble performers with a bit of life (special mention to Cole Hilder and Meagan Stewart for doing a lot with their particularly thin-written characters and giving them a bit of verve and personality), Michelle Heine choreographs up a storm with bachannaliac club bangers like "Gimme Gimme Gimme" and "Voulez Vous" and Alexander Unikowski's band gives energetic performances of the score. Louiza Blomfield leads the cast as Donna in the iconic dungarees, giving the character a realistic middle-aged exhaustion while giving tireless, peerless vocals, from the vengeful "Mamma Mia" to the tender "Slipping through my fingers". Jessica Gowing, understudying for Sophie, slots in perfectly, playing a young woman just on the edge of over-naivety but determined to find her own way. As goofy sidekicks Helen McFarlane and Tracy Noble steal every scene they're in, McFarlane with sophistication and style, Noble with reckless charm (though she's in danger of overmilking the pause before "Take a Chance on Me"). As the three potential dads, Isaac Gordon has effortless charm as Sam, Mark Maconachie is a bashful pleasure as former-headbanger-Harry, and Paul Sweeney shows both presence and softness as the adventurous Bill. Grayson Woodham's Pepper is a little scenestealer whenever he gets a moment, and the ensemble all find individual moments to add life to the show. 

This is pure pleasure done right, and it's joyous to sit in the middle of a packed house at the Q sucking it all up. Go again!