Melbourne’s Princess Theatre is hosting A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical, and the Guardian review says Will Swenson plays Neil Diamond with such swagger, charm and expansive showmanship that the show’s flaws wash away whenever he sings. That’s the central fact here: a production built around a star turn so forceful it can briefly cover the seams. The rest is a familiar theatre machine, polished enough to keep moving, but still dragging the old baggage of the jukebox musical behind it.
The Hagiography Trap
The review says the production works as a jukebox musical, but it doesn’t bring much innovation and never quite escapes the creep of hagiography that haunts the form. That’s the genre’s basic bargain. Producers want a clean, uplifting version of a life that augments rather than complicates an artist’s reputation, and the review says most such shows simply give up and pile on the hagiography. A Beautiful Noise tries something more ambitious and considered, but doesn’t fully avoid those traps.
The show opens in a dour mood, with 85-year-old Diamond, played by Terence Crawford, moping to a therapist, played by Monica Sayers, about “the clouds” that gather over his thoughts and make him irascible and difficult with loved ones. When the doctor pulls out a book of his complete lyrics and suggests they mine the material for insight, the songs literally pour out in the form of a chorus emerging from the back of his armchair. The review calls it a sweetly daggy but moving moment and says it suggests Diamond’s songs might fit musical theatre nicely. Even here, the production is doing what these shows do best: turning a life into a stage device, then hoping the songs do the heavy lifting.
Book writer Anthony McCarten builds the entire show around the therapist framing device, but the review says Diamond and the doctor haunt the edges of each scene, commenting pointlessly from the side and repeatedly re-establishing the moping. In the second act, the review says, the show begins to feel like an actual therapy session. It says McCarten mistakes self-indulgence for self-reflection and hopes poorly placed flakes of exposition will substitute for emotional honesty. That’s a neat little theatre economy: a life reduced to framing, then framed again until the whole thing starts to creak.
Star Power, Thin Surroundings
Will Swenson, who originated the part on Broadway, gets the review’s strongest praise. It says he brings such swagger, charm and expansive showmanship that the material’s flaws disappear whenever he starts to sing. His voice ranges effortlessly over Diamond’s songs, from the easy sensuality of Cherry, Cherry to the lip-curling contempt of Solitary Man. The review says Diamond’s timbre and inflection are precisely and confidently realised, but Swenson’s own warmth of tone comes through too, making it feel less like mimicry and more like genuine musical collaboration.
The problem is that the rest of the cast often gets treated like scenery with lines. The review says there is an undeniable solipsism in the show, so most of the other characters feel superfluous or ornamental. Diamond’s first wife Jaye, played by Alana Tranter, is depicted as a dowdy housewife and easily dispatched. Second wife Marcia, played by Ashleigh Rubenach, fares better but is largely left holding a long-distance phone and pleading for her husband’s return. Music producer Ellie Greenwich, played by Hannah Fredericksen, and club owner Fred Weintraub, played by Tim Wright, are there to throw out affirmations and encouragement. The structure keeps circling back to Diamond, and everyone else is left orbiting.
Many of Diamond’s songs are used cleverly, the review says, with their inherent drama repurposed as emotional crises or turning points. Play Me becomes a lush, swooning love song for Marcia and Diamond, You Don’t Send Me Flowers works as their break-up song, Sweet Caroline and Holly Holy are rousing conclusions to each act, and I Am … I Said becomes a moment of catharsis for the contemporary Diamond. The reviewer says Morningside, about loneliness, ageing and the legacy of children and art, would have made more thematic sense. That choice says plenty. The show reaches for the biggest applause lines, then wonders why the quieter material keeps looking more honest.
Energy, Glitter, and the Old Routine
The director, Michael Mayer, injects huge amounts of energy and verve into proceedings, though he leans on familiar tropes and frayed dramatic beats, including another recording-studio sequence in which the unknown rookie blows everyone away. David Rockwell’s scenic design is unfussy and effective, Kevin Adams’ lighting is fleshy and flash, Emilio Sosa’s costumes have an ecclesiastic fervour in Diamond’s most gospel-inspired songs and neatly evoke the era, and Stephen Hoggett’s choreography is hammy, though the cast throw themselves into it enthusiastically.
The review concludes that A Beautiful Noise doesn’t bring much innovation to the jukebox musical and never avoids the hagiography that haunts these shows, but it has a heroically charismatic and convincing lead performance, an abundance of rich, memorable songs and energy to burn. It says audiences will be reaching out to touch it in all its cheesy, maximalist, rhinestone-encrusted glory. The production is on at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre until October, then moves to Lyric Theatre Sydney from November. For now, the machine keeps humming, the star keeps selling it, and the rest of the cast keep doing what the form asks of them: stand nearby and make the myth look tidy.