'The Color Purple' at the Menier Chocolate Factory

My second exploration of America last week was 'The Color Purple' at the Menier Chocolate Factory. This is the first production of the musical outside America and I hope  it follows previous Choccy Factory productions such as 'Sweet Charity', 'Sunday In The Park With George', 'A Little Night Music' and 'La Cage Aux Folles' into the West End ... and maybe back to Broadway? That might be going a bit far but it is an excellent production and deserves a long run and to be seen by many more people than will fit into the Choccy Factory on the current run.

I suspect that most people will know the plot from the book or the film, of young Celie suffering abuse from her step father and then her husband, working on the farm as well as looking after the house, with no-one lifting a hand to help until her husband's long-time lover, Shug Avery pays a visit and they fall in love. Shug gives her some letters from Celie's long lost sister who is a missionary in Africa and that, along with Shug's support means she finally stands up to her husband and leaves him to begin a life of her own. And it ends with ... well, I'll leave that for you to see for yourself when you go to see the musical.

There's an awful lot of plot to get through and it fairly canters along from one scene to the next with no props other than set of chairs hung on the back wall and a sheet that acts as a baby on moment and a sofa covering the next. Its sparseness isn't really noticed because of the energy of the cast on stage and no-one ever seems to be still apart from Celie who stands and watches as life goes on around her until she wins her freedom from men and suddenly she's the one wearing the trousers.

It's a great ensemble piece with the cast, other than the leads. swapping roles and appearing as jailers and boxers and ladies of the town as needed. I particularly liked the trio of ladies who appeared every now and then almost as a classic chorus to help the story along, repeating each others words in a slightly different tone to different parts of the audience.

As with 'The Amen Corner', this is another play in which the lead roles all belong to women with men definitely taking second place. Cynthia Erivo was marvellous as Celie, a quiet still centre for most of the play with a great voice and when she came alive you knew it. The moment when she finally has the confidence and power to confront her husband and curse him really made people sit up - you could almost see it across the audience. I've not seen her before but I'll definitely watch out her in future.

I also liked Nicola Hughes as Shug Avery, Sophia Nomvete as Sofia and Abiona Omunua as Nettie both for their performances and great voices. I particularly liked Nicola's big show-stopper as a nightclub singer and Sophia's adamant 'Hell no!' to being beaten by her husband. Both were well staged with the cast crowding round Nicola standing on a chair for her nightclub belter 'Push Da Button' to make it feel small and crowded and Sophia and the cast's use of the chairs to create a line in the sand on the stage, this far and no further, hell no!

The male characters were generally unloveable, particularly Christopher Colquhoun, as Celie's husband, but I liked his son and Sofia's husband, Harpo, who demonstrated that men can change. Harpo was played by Adebayo Bolaji who seemed unable to be on stage without smiling but he was so refreshing compared to the other male characters. I hope Christopher won't mind me saying I preferred him in 'Five Guys Named Mo' when he played an altogether nicer role! Hey, so I believe what I see on stage, so sue me! Or, to quote Sofia, hell no!

Needless to say, I loved this production and, for once, I joined in the standing ovation at the end without taking time to think about it. It's such an uplifting end that you have to celebrate it. The cast earned that applause and they deserve to reprise their roles in the West End well into 2014 and I sincerely hope they do. I've already bought tickets to see it all over again in a different part of the Choccy Factory for a different viewpoint. The great singing and the great songs will be the same and I'm looking forward to seeing Cynthia, Nicola, Sophia, Abiona, Christopher and Adebayo again with the rest of the cast.

PS: any chance of a cast recording?

PPS: You have no idea how hard it's been writing 'color' without the 'u'. Honest.