The opening night of new musical comedy Betty Blue Eyes drew a star-studded audience to the Novello theatre in London’s West End on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Actress Helena Bonham Carter, writer Stephen Fry and broadcaster Sir David Frost were among those who attended the Cameron Mackintosh production.<\/p>\n
Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and new Britain’s Got Talent judge David Hasselhoff were also in attendance.<\/p>\n
The show – based on 1984 film A Private Function – features an animatronic pig.<\/p>\n
It tells of a small community in post-war Britain raising a pig to slaughter in honour of the 1947 royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten.<\/p>\n
The cast is led by League of Gentlemen star Reece Shearsmith, who plays a meek chiropodist who steals the swine at the behest of his social-climbing wife.<\/p>\n
The Guardian’s Michael Billington praised the new show, saying that Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman’s adaptation of Alan Bennett’s script was “better than the original<\/a>“.<\/p>\n “The show’s creators preserve the satire on small-town snobbery, greed and racism… while sharpening the storyline and using music genuinely to enhance character,” he added.<\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\tNeil Smith<\/span> \t<\/p>\n The pig steals the show in this odd mix of social satire, retro tunes and jingoistic flag-waving.<\/p>\n Every time she is wheeled on stage to bat her eyes and nod her head, she generates enough goodwill to turn the entire audience vegetarian.<\/p>\n Yet this is a musical without enough meat on its bones. Set in a bygone era of austerity and rationing, it has a script that desperately needs fattening up, with a tone that veers wildly between the perverse and the juvenile.<\/p>\n Children will love the titular porker. Yet how would they react to a distressing scene where her throat is almost cut, or another where five men stand before us simulating urination?<\/p>\n There’s no denying this is a brave and unusual addition to the West End landscape. How long it will remain a part of it is anyone’s guess.<\/p>\n \t\n\t<\/div>\n In his four-star review<\/a> in the Independent, Michael Coveney praised composer George Stiles and lyricist Anthony Drewe for “a series of charming songs”.<\/p>\n Shearsmith and lead actress Sarah Lancashire, he went on, had been well cast. “He’s charming, deft and moon-faced, while she translates her airs and graces into elegant dance lines and killer commands.”<\/p>\n However, the critic reserved a special mention for “star of the show” Betty – “an animatronic pink beast, controlled remotely who does win hearts”.<\/p>\n The Stage newspaper called Betty Blue Eyes a “likeably performed and technically accomplished musical<\/a>“.<\/p>\n However, its critic added that, unlike the theatre adaptation of 2000 film Billy Elliot, “the stakes don’t feel quite so high”.<\/p>\n “While you root for the real boy, it’s difficult to become quite so animated about an animatronic pig, however cute she first appears.”<\/p>\n The Telegraph’s critic Charles Spencer included several porcine puns<\/a> in his own four-star review.<\/p>\n “I’m telling no porky-pies when I say that this delightful new musical with an irresistible pig as its star left me grunting and snorting with pleasure,” he wrote. <\/p>\n Betty Blue Eyes, which was directed by Sir Richard Eyre, is scheduled to run until 22 October.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\nOur verdict<\/h2>\n
\n\tArts reporter, BBC News<\/span><\/p>\n