10/03/2021
Performed at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin in 2018, Killian Collins’ and Mark O'Looney’s Irish premiere of Paul Gordon’s and John Caird’s musical Daddy Long Legs makes a nimble leap to digital.
Jean’s Webster’s 1912 epistolary novel is a suffrage-era American fairytale in which clever orphan Jerusha Abbott is plucked from a miserable orphanage to a tower room of her own at an elite women’s college by an anonymous benefactor.
This is a show that sinks or swims on the charisma of its leading lady and Róisín Sullivan is an absolute triumph. With wit, perfect Edwardian looks and a remarkable vocal range, she sensitively conveys Jerusha’s self-consciousness in the way in which she differs from her friends, and ultimate blossoming from put-upon orphan to self-assured Fabian feminist.
As the eponymous Daddy Long Legs, the rich-voiced Eoin Cannon is an eligible bachelor of substance, despite a dodgy moustache.
Gordon’s music is rather generic and doesn’t attempt to capture the time period but Sullivan and Cannon do a sterling job selling the numbers, buoyed by David Wray’s assured musical direction.
Despite being a two-hour two-hander, the directors’ and Carlow Digital’s video production’s lightness of touch ensures that it doesn’t have the draining effect of many a shorter online show and there’s a welcome sense of intimacy and cosiness that was lacking in the UK premiere at St James Theatre in 2012. It even helps to restore a belief in happier times ahead.
https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/daddy-long-legs
Book now: www.stream.theatre/season/32
