As a musical, The Commitments fails on so many levels. As a story, it's okay. As a collection of soul music, it does quite well. I kept going back and forth between three and four stars. It's a solid 3 and a half, but given some of my annoyances about it, I decided to round down. (Sorry!)
In case you haven't read the book or seen the film (I haven't done either), it's about a man in the 80's who wants to bring soul music to Ireland. Because soul is the music of the people! So he collects his ragtag bunch of musicians/singers and forms a band. Apparently there's a lot of issues with people in the band not liking each other, but most of that seems to occur off stage. As a person does something one time, and then everyone gets outraged like it's something that's occurred on 100 occasions. Rinse and repeat. By the end of the show, you do see why one of the characters was hated, but the rest of the animosity of the band is glossed over quite a bit and people only seem to be upset about it at the tipping point so a person doesn't understand what's going on.
The music is fun and full of classics that I love. Unfortunately, about 75% of the songs are only song partially until the end of the show. And it was frustrating. I don't like being left hanging, and that's all I got until the second act. Partially sung songs. Because a lot of soul music is about the end of the song, I just felt really disappointed. The four main singers (the lead man and the three women) had fantastic voices and really could sing the songs quite well, so that was really helpful.
I did laugh quite a bit, so I think I'd be tempted to read the book or watch the film. It was also entertaining to be sitting with an Irish person and two Scottish people explaining to me what all the slang meant, since I apparently had no idea what they meant (as I found out later).
The last 30 minutes of the show is basically just a concert where they sing about five songs (to completion at least!) and expect audience participation with quasi-synchronized hand clapping and dancing. Since we all had to get up at the end for this, they automatically get a standing ovation, which is unfortunate because the play in itself is only good because of the last 30 minutes. Otherwise, it's quite lackluster with some funny bits thrown in.
Given the plethora of options in the West End, there are plenty of superior options if you want to have an amazing night out at the theatre. Unless you REALLY like the story and songs, I'd definitely suggest one of them instead. read more