Review! Sinatra the Musical, Aldwych Theatre, June 2026

"Start spreading the news" – the West End finally has a Frank Sinatra biopic. After years of being treated to shows such as Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Tina, and the classic Jersey Boys, it feels apt that we finally get a stage biopic of arguably one of the greatest entertainers of all time.

A replica of the 2023 Birmingham production, under the direction of maestro Kathleen Marshall, Sinatra the Musical arrives at the Aldwych Theatre with all the polish and assurance of a well-oiled tribute act: entertaining and crowd-pleasing, but sadly all surface and no substance.

At the center of the piece is Joel Harper-Jackson, giving an uncannily convincing portrayal of Sinatra. With his authentic crooner voice and immaculate stage presence, you really feel that if you closed your eyes, you'd believe you were listening to the man himself. The book gives him a tough job by choosing to focus on Sinatra's career struggles from the early 1940s to 1953, when he successfully lobbied for his comeback role in From Here to Eternity. This means that Harper-Jackson only gets a few moments in which he can showcase Sinatra at the height of his swooning best. However, it's to his credit that he also brings weight to Sinatra's personal struggles and delivers a fully three-dimensional portrayal.

The women in Frank's life are given equal priority and are superbly played by Phoebe Panaretos as his wife, Nancy Sinatra, who does very well with what is essentially an underwritten role. Nevertheless, she sells Nancy's anguish at Frank's wandering eye and brings considerable vocal power to her rendition of "That's All". Ana Villafañe is given much more to do in the role of iconic film star Ava Gardner. With her dynamic vocal performance and physical poise, Villafañe is truly authentic in the role and more than holds her own alongside Harper-Jackson.

We also get strong supporting turns from Jenna Russell as Sinatra's imperious mother, Dolly Sinatra. Completely unrecognizable from her Olivier-nominated performance in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Russell delivers many of the show's best comedy lines through her relationship with Frank's down-to-earth and slightly dim father, played by Marty Maguire.

It's true that, from a performance point of view, there's not much to fault. Under Kathleen Marshall's direction, the production moves at a slick pace, and there are plenty of fun production numbers. Marshall also brings her usual love of the Golden Age to the show's aesthetic and credit must go to the lighting design by Bruno Poet, which fully embraces the 1940s musical films that Frank Sinatra was equally famous for.

However, the show's biggest stumbling block is its book by Joe DiPietro. DiPietro is no stranger to the musical biopic, having scored a big hit with Memphis and then come unstuck with the ironic cult hit Diana the Musical.

Despite Sinatra's life being full of interesting dichotomies between his mainstream showmanship and his heavily documented ties to the mob, his views on segregation, and his fight on the way Americans looked down on Italian immigrants, DiPietro's book seems to want to actively avoid this, instead focusing on Frank as a loving family man, someone tempted by the beautiful looks of a lady, whether it's Ava Gardner or Judy Garland.

It's a shame because there's a really interesting piece of writing struggling to get out, but key aspects of his life are reduced to either throwaway lines or thumbnail-sketch characters: "Hey, look – Gene Kelly tap dances, Judy Garland wears ruby slippers, Hedda Hopper is a gossiper!" The closest scene we get to deconstructing the myth is a scene with Billie Holiday, played with soulful nuance by Melissa Nettleford, a moment that makes you yearn for the structural audaciousness of Jersey Boys or the dark substance of Tina.

What's left is an entertaining, yet empty night out at the theatre, underpinned by an indestructible songbook and a unified design, with Jon Morrell's eye-catching costumes and Akhila Krishnan's immersive and nostalgic video design making this a show that is easy on the eye but ultimately not much more than that

⭐⭐⭐

Sinatra Musical Tickets - Aldwych Theatre London 

Reviewed by Alex Farley on behalf of The Theatre Flyer