Pretty Woman The Musical, at Edinburgh Playhouse
The Playhouse began filling up in droves with a dressed-up Edinburgh audience ready to banish the grey, miserable Easter holiday weather.
Even before the show began, fans were quoting their favourite lines from the 1990 film and swooning over 1980s film idol Richard Gere. Soon we were transported to 1980s Hollywood with Guns N’ Roses and Kiss T-shirts, sleazy streets and fake trees outside the Blue Banana Club for a rousing performance of Welcome To Hollywood.
Amber Davies as street worker Vivian Ward brings just enough Julia Roberts references while making the role her own. There’s a tangible chemistry with Oliver Saville taking on Gere’s role of Edward Lewis. He displays an arresting vocal during Something About Her and they deliver a classic power ballad 80s style during Long Way Home on a stand-out score by Bryan Adams and Jim Wallace.
Journalist and broadcaster Ore Oduba as Mr Thompson at the glamorous Beverley Wilshire brings an enjoyable comic turn while transferring some of his Strictly dance magic. When he popped up in the orchestra pit he had the audience in the palm of his hand.
Natalie Paris also entertains as Vivian’s comic foil Kit De Luca. The lighting is another feature used well, making romantic scenes low-key and leaving plenty to the audience’s imagination.
“I wonder what’s going on now?” said the woman sitting behind, proving again how much people were lost in the moment, perhaps with one eye on their past having grown up with film.
