Mamma Mia The Musical Review

The only way to describe Mamma Mia The Musical is ABBA-solutely fantastic! The West End musical is inspired by the 2008 film of the same name directed by Phyllida Lloyd.

The musical which has been in London for 26 years, is centred around single mother Donna and 20-year-old daughter Sophie who is having a big white wedding to marry the love of her life, Sky. After finding her mother’s diary, Sophie invites three men in the hopes of finding her biological father in time for the ceremony … but it’s not as simple as she expected! The musical covers topics of female empowerment, love, identity, emotion, regrets, dreams and has moments of hilarious humour.

I went to see the show on January 29th, the night of a cast change! ITV recently held a competition to find the West End’s new Sophie and Sky, after watching the show and wanting to revisit the Novella for a while, their debut show was the perfect opportunity to go see the show for the second time!

Winners of the ‘I Have A Dream’ competition, Stevie Doc and Tobias Turley, took to the stage for the first time as Sophie and Sky and what a debut they both had! Absolutely flawless performances from the pair, you would never have known it was their first time on the West End. As to be expected Doc had much more time on stage which she commanded the whole time and her vocals were beautiful from the first scene. This was the first show she had ever auditioned for so I was even more amazed! Her chemistry with Mazz Murray, who played Donna Sheridan, was fantastic particularly during ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ where you could feel the pure emotion between the pair.

Murray has been in the show since 2019, and it’s clear to see why! In the first half of the show, unfortunately, it seemed as though the microphone levels were too low so sometimes the music overpowered the voices. Though in the second half … her vocals were breath-takingly powerful, particularly in ‘The Winner Takes It All’ where I for one was in awe as it was enriched with emotion.

Turley, was also amazing during his time on stage, again his chemistry with Doc was great to watch … and seeing him in a dress had the audience laughing. He managed to get a perfect balance between lover boy and confident cheeky chappy when round the boys.

Speaking of ‘the boys’, another character that was a joy to watch was Arcangelo Ciulla’s rendition of Pepper. His character was so funny and he impressed the audience with his numerous box jumps near the end of the show.

The duo of Kate Graham and Nicola-Dawn Brook as Tanya and Rosie completed the famous Donna and the Dynamos band. The pair were absolutely hilarious and had the audience laughing the whole way through!

I loved the choreography by Nichola Treherne, the numbers matched the tempo of the story and music perfectly. One of my favourite scenes was ‘Voulez Vous’ because of how fun and uplifting the dance was, along with the music by Marcus J. Savage. Even during the super mix at the end of the show the choreography was still amazing and the cast somehow still had an impressive amount of energy!  The set, designed by Charlie Richards, was somewhat simple but managed to bring the Greek vibe to the theatre. It was smartly designed so it could be changed into different locations at ease by the cast on stage.

Much like the film, the musical was a jukebox filled with ABBA classics which are very hard not to singalong too!

Growing up I’ve always been a huge Mamma Mia fan, and even though this was my second visit I had an amazing time. The whole show was a joy to watch, one that you can’t help but smile when watching, I had the songs in my head for days after! I did enjoy the first half more than the second, with the latter having more of a slow and low tempo vibe. With that being said I did really enjoy the super mix at the end of the show, where the audience were finally allowed to join in with three ABBA classics. After watching ‘I Have A Dream’ on television for multiple weeks, I felt so proud watching Stevie and Toby have such an amazing show! I would definitely give Mamma Mia the musical five stars, and I really hope to have the chance to visit again.

I would definitely recommend Mamma Mia the Musical to Mamma Mia or musical fans, it’s a great evening out and you can even have a sing-along at the end during the super mix!

With this being a cast change night the audience contained some celebrities including ‘I Have A Dream’ judge, Alan Carr, who we got a photo with!

Access at the Novella Theatre

Located a 10 minute walk from Charing Cross, just off the Strand is the Novella Theatre.

When we arrived we were taken through a separate entrance on the side of the theatre which had a stair lift that took me down to the dress circle. The entrance is only for people with access needs so was easy to get in and out of. Our seats were in the front row of the second tier so we had a good view, I had to take my footplates off to get close enough to see over the ledge but I then had a perfect view!

There was an accessible bar and toilet near our seat, but unfortunately the shop wasn’t reachable. Our host, Emily, was fantastic and got a list for me to choose from before going to collect the items for me; she also regularly checked we were okay and assisted with everything we needed. Overall an incredible experience.