The Broadway and West End hit show has been filmed is being shown at cinemas around the country and across the USA this summer. I loved it!
It is 1945. Paris is recovering from its four-year occupation by the Nazis, with all the bitterness, humiliation and regret that this caused. The city is full of young American soldiers, many passing through on their way home from war. Like the citizens of Paris, they are wounded and battered, either physically or mentally.
Two young men, the young Jewish composer Adam Hochberg and a budding artist Gerry Mulligan, miss the train onwards to their embarkation port, having decided to stay. Adam has met up with a young aristocratic Frenchman, Henri, whose ambition is to be a successful song and dance man, with a dream of one day performing at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Meanwhile, Henri is under pressure from his parents to marry, and their choice is the young ballet dancer Lise Dassin.
Unfortunately for Henri, both Adam and Gerry also fall for Lise – and become connected with her as they are commissioned with the aid of Milo Davenport, a rich American heiress, to compose and design a ballet for her to dance in Paris at Théâtre du Châtelet
Which of the three boys will Lise choose? And what of the hopes and ambitions of the three? This is the scenario of An American in Paris, the ballet-inspired musical that has taken both Broadway and the West End by storm since it first opened at the theatre in which it is partly set, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in 2014.
It’s a great love story, beautifully told, and with a tear-inducing (at least for this correspondent) happy ending. The show has one other great virtue, of course, having a score by George Gershwin and lyrics by brother Ira.
When we saw the show last year at the Dominion Theatre in London, I absolutely loved it and floated down Charing Cross Road afterwards on the way to supper – even though it was by far the most expensive theatre ticket we’ve ever bought, with a huge three-figure face value and a hefty booking fee to match. Therefore, when it was announced just before Christmas that the show would be filmed before it finished its West End run, and would be shown in cinemas around the country this month, I was delighted. We booked tickets straight away at our nearest venue, which turned out to be the Victoria Hall in nearby Settle.
The showing in our areas was on Wednesday (16 May), and a what a terrific experience it turned out to be – it is a stunning performance, with cast and musicians on really top form – and the ballet towards the end of the show – performed to the score of Gershwin’s symphonic work An American in Paris – was brilliantly done. The show has fantastic pace, as scenes merge seamlessly with one another, and the sets are magnificent – with the speed and change taking your breath away at times. For example, the shift from a small nightclub in Montmartre to the set of Busby Berkeley musical (and back again) is breathtaking.
For me, as well as the quality of the show, the singing and the dancing, there was an additional poignancy – my father had loved the music of George Gershwin, and I could remember as a young teenager his bringing home of an LP which featured Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris. He and my mother would have loved the show.
The film stars Tony Award nominees, New York City Ballet principal dancer Robert Fairchild as Mulligan and British Royal Ballet dancer Leanne Cope as Lise Dassin, reprising their roles from the original Broadway production, along with a company of over 50 actors, dancers and musicians including Haydn Oakley as Henri Baurel, Zoë Rainey as Milo Davenport, David Seadon-Young as Adam Hochberg and Jane Asher as Madame Baurel.
Magnificent - catch it if you can!