She Loves Me - Menier Chocolate Factory

I enjoyed this more than i expected. Its a great production of an average musical, sorry I still don't see what people rave about. Very strong cast, and nice to see scarlett strallen give more comedic performance and the wig looks fine to me in reality.

The set has to be one of the menier best and most opulent. Which highlights even more to me how rubbish funny girls was considering they had a transfer earmarked and a bigger budget

I went back to see this again

It is nice

The scene in the restaurant is truly bizarre

I really enjoyed this too. A happy, feel-good story, with some rather dark undertones. The result, I think, is a very humane show, where vices and virtues mix vigorously to flesh out its ordinary characters and make them vibrantly real.

The cast was excellent, especially Katherine Kingsley, Dominic Tighe and Callum Howells, but I guess it wouldn't have moved me so much if it didn't have such strong performances from the two leads, who after all, are the true heart of the piece. Mark Umbers and Scarlett Strallen were so tender and affecting that their characters stayed with me long after I left the theatre. I hope they all win awards.

I'm still thinking about it two days later, so really enjoying reading others' positive responses.

Well I can controdict what mrbarnaby has said as I was there tonight at thought it was great!! It is a great feel good classic briwadway show that has made me feel very Christmassy. I went in knowing the rough plot and a few of the songs but nothing else but not really anything else. This show has definitely become one of the best this year for me. All the cast had great voices esspecilay Scarlett and Mark. I wasn't pleasantly surprised by Les Dennis as I did not think he would be that good but was actually great. Katherine was fun and loverble and in the scene where her and scarlet are packing up perfume she dropped some boxes that I do not know if it was ment to happen but she recovered it well. There were a few little mistakes which is the joy of live theatre as Domonic was ment to slam the door but it did not work and he played it off well and a few things fell of the stage. I think I also loved it more as I was front row so the cast were only feet away and in the 12 days of Christmas they were literally in front of me and things were thrown.
i also liked the shabby chic  style set with the four revolves .
all in all this is a great show that you should check out with good songs, ,great set and costumes and a super cast .

Well I for one am really looking forward to seeing this on stage having never got round to seeing when Ruthie did it a few years back. I've always really liked the score but having never seen the show Im unsure what the book will be like, however I do know roughly what the plot will be

Although I disagree with your comments about the show I realise we can't all like the same things. However I have to take issue with your comment that the set is "ugly and cheap". The set is glorious and has 4 revolves. What is ugly and cheap about it? This is a small fringe theatre not The Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
Most critics and forum members who have seen the show have commented on it have praised the sets.
Best set I've seen at the Menier.

Loved Foxa's review!!!

This show is less vanilla ice cream, and more chocolate pralines and cream with caramel, a guilty moreish pleasure that had me rushing to buy tickets to see it again and as gifts!

Guilty, because I see where Parsley's coming from when he says this show is "dated." The they-hate-each-other-because-they-love-each-other romantic comedy formula has been frozen in aspic since at least 1934, when Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert wittily hated on each other in the movie "It Happened One Night." Miklos Laszlo created his spin on the formula, three years later, Parfumerie, on which this musical was based. This is the sort of wish-fulfillment you'd find on a perfume box, and the show is as trivial and seductive as sweet smelling perfume, which is probably why Laszlo set it in a perfume shop.

But life would be distressing (Trump, Brexit and Leonard Cohen's exit feel particularly upsetting) without trivial beautiful distractions. And for me, this show is a perfect thing.

At it's core is Scarlett Strallen's Amalia, who embodies Foxa's lovely description of herself as an "intense, bookish, awkward girl." The keyword is "intense." Strallen's roiling emotions explode her eyes out of her head as if on stalks. Lost in fiction, Strallen's Amalia is so angry at an imperfect real world, especially condescending men like Mark Umber's Georg, that she simmers, a head of steam surrounding her at all times, boiling over into brilliant eruptions of emotion, like "Where's my shoe?" This is an actress who is an expert at effortless intensity!

Romantic comedy movies have been dead for at least 15 years, since the heady heyday of Four Weddings/Pretty Woman/Bridget Jones ended. Musicals fill this void, and this is the best of the genre, with Strallen's Amalia Balash the most endearing romantic comedy character I've seen in ages, a stage character who really really seems to need a hug.

If the focus of Strallen is the "romantic" aspect of romantic comedy, the focus of Katherine Kingsley's Ilona is the "comedy." All coiled fury, like Strallen, but with added knowingness, Kingsley is like a spiteful shark, trawling for victims. Her abrupt cockney mannerisms, and impeccable comic timing, ground Kingsley's Ilona in a cynical wisdom of the commons, yet Kingsley simultaneously suggests with micro expressions of hurt, that tenderness lies beneath her scarlet-clad powerful predatory physicality. For that reason, she is as loveable a character as Strallen's. Her songs "I Resolve" and "At Trip to the Library" are laugh riots.

Mark Umbers' gentlemanly demeanour and delivery seem to emanate from another time, and coupled with Georg's chippiness, his Georg feels appropriately Cary Grant, the ideal romantic comedy protagonist. Slightly too much the gentleman, Umbers' Georg's passions need a tad more stirring, but Umber's winsome charm is a magic ingredient, for me, that lifts this show out of our gaudy present into a genuinely sparkling world of fantasy.

Cory English is hysterical as the Waiter, his precise pernickety pickiness in complete contrast to the chaos of the choreography around him. I had belly laughs for his scenes, and will be interested to see how Norman Pace essays the role when he takes over later in the run.

Alastair Brookshaw is youthful joy incarnate, a toothy grinning lump of geniality that supplies the sugar in his depressed boss, Maraczek's bitter crunchy pralines. Les Dennis is elemental casting as Maraczek, but if playing a depressed cuckold is a bit on-the-knuckle and Dennis' range never seems to stretch far beyond, his presence gives the show that bitter undertone that deepens the formulaic plot machinations, a tether of dark reality for this kite of a show, that poignantly we must return to when it finally stops flying.

Dominic Tighe sings wonderfully as Ilona's partner and nemesis, Kodaly, but he is better at performing the caddishness she now resents than the seductive surface that must have enticed her in the first place. He needs to borrow a whisker of Umbers' charm to thoroughly convince.

The songs in this show are wall to wall winners from Scene Four's "Tonight at Eight" through to "Grand Knowing You" towards the end of Act 2. That is about 15 brilliant songs in row, the best run of great songs I can think of anywhere. They are smart, witty and offbeat, spanning the grandeur of illuminating the smallness of the Earth compared to a vast Universe to the specific smallness of hunting down the location of a shoe. These are timeless lyrics, even if the romanticism of the core story is dated by it's fantasy.

But this is a fantasy I have already booked to return to, and apart from "Funny Girl," I haven't done that for any show (I can think of) this year. I look forward to experiencing again Scarlet Strallen's intensity, Mark Umber's charm, Katherine Kingsley's comic timing, Sheldon Harnick's lyrics, and Jerry Bock's 15-in-a-row peerless melodies. With this moreish show, one more trip still may not be enough.

5 stars.

Oops, sorry. I meant Callum Howells above, when I referred to Alastair Brookshaw. (It's too late to edit the post above).

Alastair Brookshaw came across as sly and furtive, half weasel, half squirrel, but managed to come across as a likeable human regardless, perhaps because he gave himself so totally to his "Perspective" number.

Foxa, Mark Umbers' smiley face is the best smiley face.

Saw this tonight and loved it. I have owned and loved the Ruthie Henshall recording for many years but this was the first opportunity I have had to see it.

A charming show and I enjoyed all the performances.