It is 12 years since Legally Blonde the musical opened at the Savoy Theatre in London. That is before Lucy Moss the co-creator and co-director of the phenomenon that is Six hit the West End and Broadway. So under Lucy Moss’s direction, here at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre on a chilly summer evening is the hottest musical in town.
Courtney Bowman takes the lead. She was a very successful Anne Boleyn in Six, although not quite right for me because the only exceptional physical quality recorded about the tragic queen was her exceptionally long neck. I was wrong. Bowman has since set the new body shape for casting successive Anne Boleyns because of her stellar performance and now she embodies a scintillating Elle Woods from Californian air head, retail specialist to Harvard legal eagle.
This transformation is the Pygmalion story but there is no Professor Higgins architect, just Elle Woods’s natural ability to think outside the box. Taking herself off to Harvard after the boyfriend, Warner Huntingdon III (Alistair Toovey), who dumped her for someone more serious, Elle faces prejudice from staff and students. Her glittering pink costumes separate her from the browns and greens of snooty Harvard but I was impressed with her professional navy outfit and tamed, “up” blonde hair for appearing at court.