Jersey Boys

Anyone who has yawned their way through the inanities of too many jukebox musicals is likely to wonder how 'Jersey Boys' could possibly deserve its Broadway plaudits. And it's true that the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons follows a common pattern of early struggle, success and break-up. But what makes this so much more entertaining than its predecessors is the smart book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. And the fact that director Des McAnuff keeps the pace flowing even when dishing out dollops of biographical details, as the Italian-American foursome describe how they strove to escape from unfashionable, mob-run New Jersey. The pollution must have contributed to the falsetto twang of Valli's famous voice.

It helps too that there is drama in the way Tommy DeVito took Valli under his wing in between trips to jail and resented the fact that the singer grew out of his old protector and increasingly sought inspiration from songwriter and final member Bob Gaudio (played with a delightful prissy elegance by Stephen Ashfield). In the early days, the group swapped names as often as a gangster on the run before landing on The Four Seasons ('Love the name.' 'So did Vivaldi.') and winning the hearts of their blue-collar fans. Once DeVito leaves, the plot loses some of its drive but it's hard to see how even Valli could have bettered scrawny-kid Ryan Molloy, who pours his talent into such doo-wop standards as 'Big Girls Don't Cry', 'Fallen Angel' and the fantastically brassy 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You'. Enhanced by sets by Klara Zieglerova that combine urban grit and cage-like fences with a dash of glitter, this is a big bang of a show that should be around for far longer than just the four seasons.