‘Sister Act the Musical’ review
This review is from July 2022. ‘Sister Act’ returns for 2024 with Beverley Knight in the lead Mar 15-Jun 8, and Alexandra Burke Jun 10-Aug 31. Basically, this big-budget revival of the musical version of ‘Sister Act’ is more-or-less happening because Whoopi Goldberg was going to star in it. Having previously done a stint as the disapproving Mother Superior in the show’s first West End run, the comic-turned-Hollywood-star-turned-mega-successful-chatshow-host had been persuaded to take part in a new production. However, as the programme notes explain, she agreed on the condition she could return to the role she played in the original 1992 film: heroine Deloris van Cartier, the nightclub singer who goes into hiding in a convent after witnessing her mobster boyfriend execute a snitch. It sounds like rewrites were afoot to make the character older, and it would have been fascinating to see exactly how that would have played out. But sadly you can guess what happened next. The pandemic put paid to both the original 2020 dates and its 2021 reschedule, and Goldberg had to drop out, leaving a curious production: staged at the vast Hammersmith Apollo for a relatively short spell in order to maximise the time of a star no longer performing in it. To be fair, it’s hardly lacking in names: Jennifer Saunders remains on board from the initial casting as Mother Superior, while Clive Rowe (Eddie Souther), Lesley Joseph (Sister Mary Lazarus) and Keala Settle (Sister Mary Patrick) are all dece