Sister Act is just heavenly. Milton Keynes Theatre.

Sister Act the Musical has all the bits from the film you love plus a whole load of new songs that make this musical truly heavenly.  It follows the story of the first film, Sister Act but with the new songs that gives it a whole new feel to the show.

Alexandra Burke plays Dolores and she really stretches her acting talent in this role.  We all know that Alexandra is a fantastic singer and this show gives her a chance to show a range of vocals including gospel and disco.  And there were definitely glimpses of Whoopie Goldberg in her performance but of course this role belonged to Whoopie so that is expected.

The young shy postulate sister Mary Robert is played by Sarah Goggin and she is absolutely outstanding – keeping her shy demeanour for most of the show but wow what a voice that shy nun has.  And everyone’s knows these nuns can’t sing, well until of course Dolores comes along.  Poor Mother Superior, played by Karen Mann.  She has a job on her hands to try to keep things running smoothly but Dolores is someone who isn’t exactly quiet.

This show has some fantastic show tunes.  This includes Take Me To Heaven which is performed at the beginning and end of the show.  When I Find My Baby is a great soul classic which sounds like a love song until you listen to the lyrics and realise Curtis is singing about killing Dolores.  I Could Be That Guy is a great number about how Eddie wants to be the man Dolores might fancy.

Curtis Shank is the bad boyfriend who is trying to kill Dolores after she witnessed a murder. Arron Lee Lambert plays the low life but it’s difficult to really hate him as he is likeable and can sing beautifully.  He has three henchmen who support him in trying to find Dolores. Pablo (Ricky Rojas), Joey (Samuel Morgan-Grahame) and TJ (Sandy Grigelis) who are funny and brilliant in their own song during the second half.

To stop them a policeman called Eddie, who was at school with Dolores, is trying to protect her. Eddie badly wants to be ‘that guy’ who Dolores would go for as he is secretly (or perhaps not so secretly) in love with her.  You cannot help but like Eddie who is played by Jon Robyns.  Jon makes the character not only likeable but you actually find yourself willing him to get his girl.

Many of the cast played instruments in the show rather than have a separate band or orchestra. This is becoming quite a common feature in recent years and for some shows this works perfectly (such as Calamity Jane).  I am not convinced that Sister Act is a show that should adopt this stance as it can detract from the actual acting and singing and moving the story along.  That said, all the performers who did play instruments did so at an excellent standard.

This is a feel good show and had the audience up on its feet.  If you want to feel good…go and see this show.

4 stars.