Story by: Catherine Johnson
Music and Lyrics: Benny Andersson and Bjrn Ulvaeus
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Design: Mark Thompson
Details: Prince of Wales Theatre, Coventry Street, London W1D 6AS
Tube: Piccadilly Circus
In Short: Mother and daughter relate through Abba songs.
In Full: Hang out at any family get together and it’s odds-on that before the night’s drawn to a drunken close, some niece or aunty will have slapped Abba’s Greatest Hits onto the CD in a bid to encourage inter-generational dancing, at least among the assembled women.
While fellas debated the relative aesthetic merits of Blondie and Redhead, Abba’s music always did appeal more to girls than guys, a fact acknowledged by the show’s creators who have stitched together a rudimentary mother/daughter plot around a whopping 27 Abba favourites.
For the record, it’s the eve of daughter’s wedding, and she wants to find out the identity of her father. Naturally the storyline and characterisations are wafer thin but it doesn’t really matter, because so many of the audience will be able to fill in the gaps with their own real life versions of similar Abba- infected experiences. What does matter is the standard of the musical performances and here a large, eager cast pull out all the stops to come up with a wonderful evening of heartwarming fun.
