Mrs. Doubtfire review: ‘No doubt about it, it’s ingeniously done’

Here’s one of several shows that failed to find an audience on Broadway after mixed reviews and a pandemic-induced hiatus. Now, after a run in Manchester and what seems like an inordinately long preview period, London is finally saying ‘Helloooo’ to the musical adaptation of the Robin Williams film.

The critics have been much kinder to Mrs. Doubtfire over here and I’m happy to join the ranks of those singing its praises. Maybe it was just a case of bad timing when it played New York. Maybe that Manchester stint and longer-than-usual preview window have given producers time to fix whatever the NYC scribes felt was lacking.

Either way, all my doubts about Doubtfire (I mean, just how many more musicalisations of movies do we need?) were dispelled as soon as Gabriel Vick as Daniel Hillard opened his mouth to impersonate everyone from Homer Simpson to Prince Charles via his son Harry and a bawling baby. Then not long after he got into drag to play the titular frumpy nanny, I’d put Williams to the very back of my mind.

Robin’s sensible shoes are bigs one to fill, as is his fatsuit and heaving bosom, but Vick is more than up to the task. A Brit performer with a steady but low-key track record, he seizes his chance to shine with dazzling comic aplomb and more energy than a nuclear power plant. He’s a manic man-child who you can’t help rooting for.

You probably already know the story but just in case you don’t: Daniel is a voiceover artist in San Fransisco who can’t hold down a job and whose kiddish ways are driving his wife Miranda to distraction. He’s a devoted dad to his three children but Miranda wants a divorce and he’s only allowed joint custody if he can find a good home and a steady job. Thus he ends up impersonating a Scottish nanny to inveigle his way back into his children’s lives.

There are life lessons along the way, of course, but John O’Farrell’s book mostly keeps the schmaltz at bay. It’s a brisk farce (the couple are divorced by the end of the opening number) featuring one hilarious scene after another and the music is almost incidental.

There are some fun songs, though. ‘Make Me A Woman’ is a transformational disco anthem that could be an alternate Drag Race theme. There’s a deliriously daft kitchen-set number about spatchcock cooking. Laura Tebbutt’s Miranda belts out a couple of ballads. And ‘Big Fat No’ is the ultimate put-down as Daniel-as-Doubtfire tells his ex-wife’s beefy new beau (Samuel Edwards with biceps bigger than his head) that she’s just not into him.

Even funnier is the number in a Spanish restaurant where a Flamenco singer wails about decepción whilst it’s going on around her on many layers at once. Like the show itself, it’s not subtle but it’s ingeniously done.

Mrs. Doubtfire is at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London. Get tickets here.