Beauty & the Beast (Capitol Theatre) ★★★

Book by Linda Woolverton. Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. Capitol Theatre, Sydney. Jun 14 – Dec 24, 2023. 

Beauty & the Beast alternates between, well, being beautiful and being beastly. At times it’s full of wonder and at times it just plods its way through the story. But one thing was clear when I caught the Sunday evening performance – the children in the room were utterly invested in everything happening on the stage. It was magical.

Disney adaptations tend to be… fine. And they don’t strive for much more than that. A few flashy moments to make the kids go ‘wow’ and a standard walk-through of the story with a few new songs thrown in (which rarely linger in your ears the second they’re done). They seem designed to be easily replicated on tour, on a cruise ship, around the world (The Lion King is the great exception of course, and possibly Mary Poppins). So I never find myself racing out to see them, as much as I know that I will find stuff to enjoy in them. Beauty & the Beast was no different.

I just couldn’t understand why ‘Be Our Guest’ was a bog-standard production number. Yes there were lots of flashing lights and dancers but the premise of representing a dinner party was thrown out after about 30 seconds. The rest of the choreography could have been lifted straight out of another show. And after all the reliance on a projection for backgrounds, why not replicate the original CG ballroom from the film? Plus, did Lumière (Rohan Browne) need to light his candles every 2 minutes? We get it, they’re real.

These odd choices were offset by some fantastic transformations (although I could have done without the lights flashing right in my eyes – a cheap trick). For the life of me I can’t figure out how they brought the tea-cup Chip to life. How did they hide the performer’s body? I was distracted trying to see through the stage magic. The best sound effect of the night was the screams of shock and joy coming from all the kids around me. It was louder than a Harry Styles concert. The best line of dialogue came, not from the stage, but from a small boy who wasn’t happy with the way Belle (Shubshri Kandiah – as wonderful as always) had snubbed the Beast (we had understudy Luke Ward on as The Beast, and he was terrific) who was trying to be nice… “He has feelings too!” he yelled out to rapturous applause from the audience. Thankfully it was the only interactive moment of the night.

Apart from these highlights, and the excellent casting (Gareth Jacobs as Cogsworth, Jayde Westaby as Mrs Potts, Jackson Head as Gaston and Nick Cox as Le Fou were also stand outs), the show itself is pretty dull. Adult minds have to skip over the appalling sexual politics involved, and gloss over the shallow love story. The less said about the book the better frankly. There was no attempt to do anything other than a basic translation from screen to stage aimed at the smallest children.

But you can’t fight the amazing tunes by Howard Ashman and Alan Menkin. Those originals are timeless classics and do more storytelling than all the flashing lights, animated backgrounds and terrible dialogue that surround them. No matter how cynical I was, they won me over every time. The newer tunes with lyrics by Tim Rice barely made an impact.

The hierarchy of Disney Beauty & the Beasts is still The Original Animation > The Live Action film > The Stage Musical. Maybe the stage version and the live action film can switch depending on the casts but the original animation reigns supreme. There’s fun to be had here, but it’s a patchy affair. If you’re going to go, get as close as you can to the stage… and see if you can figure out how they do Chip! I really want to know!