WE are quite used to opera singers taking a break after singing a strenuous role, but when two leading ladies are announced for a musical, you presume that they will alternate week by week during a year-long tour, which started earlier this month in Sunderland and ends on 4th April 2026 in Leeds.
After watching French-born Elle Ma-Kinga N’Zuzi belt out 18 of the 22 numbers in this show in the true robust style of the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Tina Turner, for three hours, (nearly three and a half on Press Night, when a technical fault held up proceedings for 20 minutes), throwing herself heart and soul into the dramatic telling of the lady’s life, it is more probable that she will share the role on a daily basis with Jochebel Ohene MacCarthy.
Although the second half features fewer songs and more of the drama in Tina Turner’s life as she struggles to re-establish herself after the breakup with abusive husband and musical partner Ike Turner [David King-Yombo]. There is attempted suicide and near bankruptcy, before the now-in-her-forties Tina has a triumphant first chart number one with What’s Love Got to do With It? .
As Tina tries to make some form of reconciliation with her cold-hearted dying mother, Letitia Hector, stay loyal to her caring manager, Gemma Sutton whilst taking advice from a new manager, Isaac Elder, and her new love, marketing man Erwin Bach, (William Beckerleg), the emphasis moves onto Elle Ma-Kinga N’Zuzi’s acting rather than vocal ability, and she was defiantly not found wanting. Neither was the support she received from Georgina Gillam as her faithful sister Alline, Rushand Chambers as her religious zealot of a bullying father, Claude East’s knowing grandmother, and the six youngsters who share the roles of the young Tina and Alline.
When Elle literally took over the stage for the grand finale, introducing us to the on stage live musicians who had been slipping in and out of the action all evening, before bounding up the lit staircase with the same vibrant enthusiasm that she had shown on her first entrance, you wondered where all that energy was stored in such a petite frame.
When this brightly-lit, sparklingly-costumed production leaves the Bristol Hippodrome on Saturday 26th April , it continues a tour that brings it back to Plymouth’s Theatre Royal between the 1st and 12th July, and Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre from 7th to 18th October.
GRP