Four star review of The Commitments at The Alhambra Theatre, Bradford

It’s now, incredibly, over thirty years since the hit film of The Commitments, based on award-winning Irish author Roddy Doyle’s novel – and nearly ten years since the original acclaimed stage show. This new touring production, telling the story of a soul band made up of white working-class Dubliners in the late 1980s, lives up to all its predecessors – it hits the ground running and maintains that high energy throughout.

While the fantastic soul numbers, more than twenty of them, come thick and fast, this is not a jukebox musical by any means. It has a strong narrative – written by Doyle – with well-drawn characters and relationships and some subtle socio-political commentary about the escape that involvement in the band offers to a group of youngsters with little hope for the future.

Set in Barrytown, a fictional suburb of Dublin – the story opens with Jimmy Rabitte (James Killeen), a bright, ambitious young man who has his sights set on something more than a job at the local factory getting together a couple of friends and auditioning others – much to the irritation of his Da (Nigel Pivaro) – to form a soul band. There’s lead singer Deco (Ian McIntosh) who has a great voice but is undisciplined, a couple of guitarists, a sax player, a trumpeter, a drummer and three backing vocalists. We see them gradually develop into a coherent group, belting out the hits and gaining a loyal local following. But soon egos, creative differences and romantic entanglements begin to cause problems…

Songs include Proud Mary, Knock on Wood, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted, I Heard it Through the Grapevine, Chain of Fools, Mustang Sally, Try a Little Tenderness among many others, all of them classics and performed brilliantly by the talented cast of actor-musicians. Doyle has said that his decision to create a band that sang soul covers rather than their own 1980s material meant that the music – and by extension the story – would have a timeless quality. That has certainly proved to be the case and its appeal is broad. The audience covered a wide range of ages – there were, not surprisingly, many of the vintage who would remember the movie coming out (before many of the current cast members were born) but also a good proportion of younger people.

The last few songs are played, after the story has ended, front of curtain and back-to-back as a concert. Everyone was already up on their feet for a, well-deserved, standing ovation and stayed to dance and sing along. The cast are clearly having a ball – and their joy and energy is infectious. It’s a show that delivers a much-needed blast of uplifting positivity; a perfect example of the transformative power of music.

To November 19.