Newsies the Musical review

This staging of this Disney musical about the 1899 New York newsboys’ strike couldn’t be better timed. Industrial action is in the air and in newsprint, and the atmosphere around the show is febrile, not least because of its devoted fans, who have waited eagerly to see it come to the UK. 

The original film whimpered into cinemas in 1992 – it’s just about worth watching to see a young Christian Bale sing – but it developed a small, devoted following, enough to prompt a stage adaptation that debuted on Broadway in 2012. Directed here by Matt Cole, it isn’t really about its politics. With a winter of discontent on our hands, it’s a superb spectacle – a fun distraction rather than a revolution. 

Things kick off when money-grubbing newspaper tycoon Joseph Pulitzer (a villainous Cameron Blakely) makes it more expensive for the newspaper sellers – mostly orphaned boys living rough – to buy “papes”. The Mick Lynch of the story is Michael Ahomka-Lindsay’s sparky, spunky Jack Kelly, the newsies’ de facto leader who rallies them into striking, helped by Ryan Kopel’s more thoughtful, gentle Davey. There’s a love interest in reporter Katherine Plumber (charming Bronté Barbé), and that’s about it for plot. Alan Menken’s tunes are typically tender and catchy. There are characters with names like Crutchie, who uses a crutch, and Specs, who wears specs. It’s turn-of-the-century Noo Yoik, and book writer Harvey Fierstein, tongue a little in cheek, never lets you forgeddaboutit.

In Cole’s vast production, designed by Morgan Large, we get a set the size of a New York block, all black, rusting fire escapes, girders and water towers. A troupe of about 20 newsies tightly perform Cole’s terrific dance sequences: balletic, acrobatic and thrumming with energy. It doesn’t hugely matter that the dialogue gets swallowed up in that hangar-sized block, or that the sound mix heavily favours the band over the already underpowered vocals. By the third or fourth big choreo scene, we’ve got newsies tap dancing on the table and swinging from chandeliers.

The performers make Large’s set a playground. If Cole can find a ridiculous way for them to make an entrance, he does. Somersaulting? Sure. Down a slide? Why not. On their head? You bet. Flying on a zip wire from the back of the auditorium? Yes please. It whips up an infectious sense of fun. Newsboys scuttle in the shadows like urban rats, then pop up when you least expect it, often via the auditorium. 

It’s not going to trouble Billy Elliot for top spot in the list of best musicals about strikes – there’s too little political reality here for that, including a triumphant win for the newsies, which, surprise surprise, didn’t actually happen. Instead, this is a vehicle for good songs, wry wisecracks and the most exuberant choreography this side of 42nd Street.