Chaka Khan has lived one hell of a life. A teenage Black Panther turned soul star, she worked with everyone from Whitney Houston to Joni Mitchell, shot at her second husband with a rifle, and battled alcohol and drug addiction throughout her life. Khan was born to spawn her own jukebox musical. She’s got the story, and she’s certainly got the hits.
Unfortunately, I’m Every Woman, playing at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre after a limited run at the Hackney Empire, is not a worthy reflection of that life or those hits. It is a messy, overly long piece of theatre, its script a bizarre mix of stilted scenes and strange song choices that squanders lead Alexandra Burke’s talent and does little to convince us of Chaka’s very real star power.
This chaotic middle is bookended by a far more sombre scene: a group therapy session between Chaka and her family, as they reckon with addiction and the distance it’s placed between the singer and her daughter Milini (Charlotte St Croix). We then flash back to Chaka’s childhood, the story barrelling at speed past her father’s heroin addiction, experiences of abuse, first loves.
Everything in I’m Every Woman goes fast, fast, fast. The hits are cut short to squeeze in more songs, the scenes a jumbled mess of non-sequitors and exposition (‘Speaking of pain, how’s the new medication for your knee?’ follows one particularly emotional moment), designed to propel the story forward, always forward.
The plot and timeline quickly become hard to follow, even with Natalie Pryce’s textured costumes there to usefully signpost the decade. Nia T Hill’s script is littered with anachronistic phrases – and not in a deliberate, ‘Tom Holland calling Matt Damon “dad” in The Odyssey’, kind of way. References to a ‘glam squad’ and ‘mum guilt’ are made before the turn of the century; tweets projected on the backdrop marking the death of Chaka’s collaborator Prince (Miles Anthony Daley, also a highlight as Richard Holland), left me totally baffled, convinced we were still in the ’90s.
I’m Every Woman tells us at every turn that Chaka Khan is a big deal, but fails to show us why. Burke is a beautiful singer, with a voice that sounds every bit as clear and powerful in 2026 as it was when she won The X-Factor in 2008. Yet she’s miscast here: not as Khan per say but as the version of her presented in the show. This is a character who clearly feels the weight of the world on her shoulders, but Burke’s performance rarely fluctuates from that self-seriousness and her pure voice lacks Khan’s trademark grit.
Not that she’s given much of a chance to show it. For a Chaka Khan musical, Burke sings very little. She features on the biggest hits – ‘Ain’t No Body’, ‘Higher Love’, ‘Through the Fire’ – yet the solos, the stand-out moments that garner applause, in said songs are dished out to other characters. I’ll avoid spoilers, but the decision not to have Burke sing ‘I’m Every Woman’ in the second half is utterly bewildering, made even more so given what replaces it.
There are flashes of brilliance amongst the madness. The show’s diegetic music, when Chaka is in the studio, singing in a bar or performing with her band Rufus, is a clear highlight of the production with the cast’s musical prowess on full display. But Chaka is usually intoxicated, thus preventing Burke from performing to the same level. The curtain call rolls around and our star does get to sing the hits, demonstrating her raw vocal power as the dancers stretch their legs and show off Ebony Clarke’s choreography at full pelt. Performed in a vacuum, it’s a joyous medley with Burke at her best. But after the last two-and-a-half hours of theatre, it feels unearned. Burke deserves better than this, and so, frankly, does Khan.
