Evita as a musical would not be included in my top 20. I have seen many other shows I would rather go to and although could probably provide anyone with 20 or more versions of the number one song associated with Evita “Don’t Cry for me Argentina” it is my least favourite number in the whole show.

The 2008 touring production produced and directed by Bill Kenwright, however is well worth seeing, Edinburgh was close to the start of the tour and dates are displayed on the Kenwright website including a two week visit to Glasgow in September.

The set is sumptuous with gliding columns, sliding staircases and walkways, which despite the superb visual spectacle are probably relatively simplistic in this day and age of technically complicated sets. However it is definitely the multi talented cast who are the shining gems in this visual spectacle.

The ensemble Gemma Atkins, Ellie Baker, David Burilin, Thomas Camillieri, Errol Clayton, Rebekah Clifford, Steven Fawell, Susie Griffin, Stuart Hickey, Amira Matthews, Martin McCarthy, Kara Lane, Chris Palmer, Kieran Snell and Robbie Towns provide an extremely high standard of performance inviting Nikki Mae as Peron’s young Mistress, James Waud as nightclub singer Magaldi, Mark Heenehan as Peron, Seamus Cullen as Che and finally last but not least Louise Dearman as Eva to project their voices and display there characters personalities as strongly as possible.  As we have said before a strong ensemble usually enhances a good production and displays the main characters to there best. This fairly small base unit is augmented for the larger crowd scenes by local school children and some keen local adults taken from the towns and city’s they are performing in.

Nikki Mae is making her professional debut as Peron’s young mistress, in Evita, yet her rendition of ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’ displays not only a lovely voice but both the vulnerability of the character and the inner strengths of someone who has been in this position before.

James Waud, also in his first professional show, as nightclub singer Magaldi. It could be said he was responsible for the whole Maria Eva Duarte / Evita Peron story having been forced to take the young Eva to Buenos Aires. James won the Liverpool Echo’s ‘Search for a Star’ competition, backed by Bill Kenwright, to play this character.  Look out for both Nikki Mae and James Waud in future productions.

Peron himself is played by relative veteran Mark Heenehan, who has had many parts in the theatre, in straight plays, musicals, television, films and is also a voice-over artist. This gentle giant ,he towers over his leading lady, has both a huge voice and stage presence. Yet it is totally believable that he could fall completely for the mesmerising charms of his future wife. The character is so cleverly written and performed that those moments where he disagrees with Evita become charged with electricity, yet he backs down rather than loose this woman he is totally obsessed with.

Although Che Guevara and Evita Peron probably never met Che was a student in Buenos Aires in 1948 and would have been aware of the politics at the time. His own revolutionary career did not begin until 1956, after the death of Evita, in Cuba not Argentina. The use of a Che character as narrator during the musical allowed for a little more political comment than that of a non-descript persona. In this production Seamus Cullen is the to me ideal candidate. His stage presence is superb, his looks ideal and his voice amazing, he is able to blend into almost invisibility when required yet is also able to take command of the stage at the perfect moments.

Louise Dearman has the unenviable task in carrying and displaying the whole gambit of emotions during Evita’s life. She lays her heart open to all whilst being tough enough for it to be believable that she could play all these macho men at there own games and win. She has to develop from a young, bright-eyed daydreaming teenager to a hard headed woman who knows what she wants and is able to go and get it despite what others think of her. Yet at the end when she seems to have everything she wants and illness gets in the way, she is believable when telling Peron all she really needed in life was love.  Louise is a very experienced actress and I have been fortunate in seeing her play many varied characters all totally different in many ways. With bags of ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is, she is able to dominate the stage and even I enjoyed ‘Don’t cry for Me Argentina’.

If you get the chance to see this latest touring version of Evita do so as I am sure you will enjoy the spectacle, the set, costumes, direction, choreography, lighting and musical arrangement all blend together to produce a great show.

The musicians under the watchful eye of musical director and arranger David Steadman keep the performers tunefully in cheque.

If Evita is not one of my top 20 musicals why did I go to see it despite not being in the best of health? Having been given the opportunity to be taken to see it on its second last night in Edinburgh I was delighted to go mainly because it is a Bill Kenwright production, and having followed his productions since the 1980’s when David Steadman was the MD for “Joseph….etc” and ‘the’ David Ian wore Josephs loincloth, I knew I was going to see a quality show.  Also thanks to reality TV I watched every episode of the 2007 show “Any Dream Will Do!” on which Bill was one of the judges on the panel and Seamus Cullen was one of the wannabe Josephs. As soon as I saw Seamus I knew that although I wanted him to stay on the show for as long as possible, for me he was not ‘Joseph’ but thought he would make a perfect ‘Che’!  Boy was I so correct he stole the show for me. I now can not imagine anyone else in the part! Unfortunately I did not see David Essex in the original production, but believe Seamus could even give David a run for his money. The musical number ‘High Flying Adored’ is probably my highlight of the show and to me it was perfect. To cap it all I met Seamus after the show and he is as lovely and gentlemanly in the flesh as he came over as nice on TV. I look forward to seeing him in many other shows for many, many years to come. 

For further information on the Evita tour 2008 and other Bill Kenwright shows go to www.kenwright.com

Photographs of Seamus Cullen and Mark Heenehan taken by Sheila Kay Jack