Pretty Woman: The Musical review, Piccadilly Theatre – Good performances can’t save this shallow, outdated vision of sex work

Three decades on from the 1990 film starring Julia Roberts, our understanding of the world of sex work has changed immeasurably. You wouldn’t know that from watching this

Alexandra Pollard
Monday 02 March 2020 20:36 GMT
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Danny Mac and Aimie Atkinson in Pretty Woman: The Musical
Danny Mac and Aimie Atkinson in Pretty Woman: The Musical (Helen Maybanks)

★★☆☆☆

There are a whole lot of men behind Pretty Woman: The Musical. Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance wrote the songs. Garry Marshall and JF Lawton – the duo behind the popular 1990 film – wrote the script. Jerry Mitchell directed and choreographed. You have to get past 22 Jims, Jerrys and Johns before a single female name appears on the credited creative team – US props supervisor Kathleen Fabian.

This might explain why this new musical, which opened in the US in 2018 before closing a year later, offers up such a shallow and outdated vision of sex work, female agency and womanhood. In the original – a wealthy businessman (Edward, played in the film by Richard Gere and here by Hollyoaks alumnus Danny Mac) employs a Hollywood Boulevard sex worker (Julia Roberts’s Vivian, valiantly taken on here by the fizzy Aimie Atkinson) to accompany him on a week of social functions. They bargain. They bicker. They fall in love. Vivian goes on a shopping spree, scrubs up and quits the game. She was always better than that world, the film seems to say.

What a shame, then, that this new musical makes absolutely no attempt to evolve beyond that. Three decades on, our understanding of the world of sex work has changed immeasurably. Except you wouldn’t know that from watching this, which sticks so closely to the film that it feels like a karaoke version of it.

Pretty Woman: The Musical is a story of exceptionalism. With a gaudy backdrop of neon palm trees, it hammers home the idea that Vivian is a better breed than the rest of the women on her beat. The everyday dangers of sex work are hinted at – “They found Skinny Marie in an alley, dead” – but we are only invited to care about Vivian, whose spiky edges are smoothed over entirely. Her friend and mentor Kit (Rachael Wooding, plucky but poorly served by her role) tells her she has “potential”; that she, unlike the rest of them, is a “real lady”. The world doesn’t need to change. The violence against women doesn’t need to change. Vivian just needs to lift herself out of it and never look back. And the idea that anyone could actually like sex work? Or even see it as a viable way of earning a living? Absolutely not.

You could argue that it’s unfair to expect nuanced sexual politics from a fun night out. But even if that were true – and I think the likes of Hamilton, Waitress and the underrated Max Martin musical & Juliet prove otherwise – the songs aren’t even any good. Bryan Adams’s melodies feel phoned in, the lyrics a missed opportunity to expand on the thinly mapped-out psychology of the characters. “This Is My Life” has a nice hook, but the rushed, two-and-a-half minute backstory it gives Vivian does her a disservice. I couldn’t hum any of the other songs if my life depended on it.

There are some lovely performances. Mac does a good job with a strangely bland role; Bob Harms is cool and charismatic as the mysterious, shape-shifting narrator; and there’s a sweet turn by Alex Charles as a wide-eyed bellhop. Atkinson is the star of the show – empathic and emotive with a powerhouse voice. But even if they had recruited Julia Roberts herself, she couldn’t have saved Pretty Woman: The Musical from leaving a bad taste in the mouth. Bringing it to the West End in this shape was a big mistake. Huge.

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