Mack and Mabel

Direct from its premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre, the dazzling Broadway musical comedy Mack & Mabel stars double Olivier award-winning Michael Ball (Hairspray, Sweeney Todd) as Mack Sennett and introduces Rebecca LaChance(Broadway’s Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) as Mabel Normand. Read more …

Based on the real-life romance between legendary filmmaker Mack Sennett and his rising star Mabel Normand, it tells the story of Hollywood’s golden age, where the fun of the silent screen was dominated by the hysterical chaos of the Keystone Kops and the glamour of the bathing beauties. A world where heroes wore capes, girls were tied to the railway tracks and it all ended with a pie in the face.

Mack & Mabel features an outstanding score by Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!, La Cage aux Folles) and is widely admired for its classic Broadway hits including I Won’t Send Roses, Time Heals Everything and Tap Your Troubles Away.

The critical consensus

I can promise you that this genius production of Mack & Mabel will stay with you long after the credits roll.

Martin Gray, All Edinburgh Theatre, 12/11/2015

Great music and choreography and a tour de force by Michael Ball as ‘Mack’.

(*) Gordon Clayton, Edinburgh Guide, 12/11/2015

All in all, it is a slick and elegant spectacle worth watching for its wonderful lead performances and cinematic beauty, despite the evident flaws in the book.

(*) (*) Detelina Garbatova, TVBomb, 13/11/2015

If songs like I Won’t Send Roses aren’t quite the normal fare of musical comedy, their fine melodic subtlety more than matches the story they tell; in a rare musical entirely made for grown-ups, and thoroughly enjoyed by them, too.

(*) Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman, 14/11/2015