Mamma Mia!: ABBA favourites bring crowd to their feet

ABBA fans will find this good-time party tribute impossible to resist.  For just shy of a decade during the 70s and early 80s, ABBA ruled the charts with their bubbly brand of Euro-pop and tunefully poignant ballads.

MAMMA MIA! the stage show based around two dozen of their hits has been running for 11 years on Broadway, and the local ensemble delivered the reason why the show that takes place on an idyllic Greek island, has been such a fave of so many for so long.

On a stage boasting a set that would do the Royal New Zealand Ballet Company proud, the cast animate and superbly choreograph the characters and their story to a pulsing soundtrack from Barry Jones’ proficient understage band.

While not all the vocalists had perfect singing pitch, their characterisations and interactions were spot on, as this tale of lost love and missed opportunity plays out.

On the eve of her wedding, 21 year old Sophie played by Alexia Clark, tries to work out who her father might be.  To her midsummer Aegean celebration, Sophie has secretly invited the three possible candidates, discovered after snooping through her mother’s diary.

As mum, Val Andrew is sublime, personifying the independent and spirited Donna vocally as well as physically and emotionally.  She is artfully abetted by Katte Johnston and Amy Hunt who play Donna’s besties Rosie and Tanya, aka The Dynamos from when the three were a performing group, turning in a couple of terrific scene-stealing routines of their own.

MAMMA MIA!’s well-known tunes along with its blast of nostalgia from a pre-Eurozone, pre-austerity bail-out Greece, is presented with zestful effervescence.

There was no doubting the reaction of the opening night audience, who were up and dancing as the encore brought on the curtain call and wound the show up.  It’s a party that should continue unabated for the rest of the Regent on Broadway season.