West End Theatre: Touched For The Very Frst Time | Trafalgar Studios 2

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The Review - THEATRE by RICHARD OSLEY
Published: 6 March 2009

Uncommonly good performance shows Sadie’s really got class

TOUCHED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME
Trafalgar Studios 2

SOMEHOW still looking as hot as she did carting Jarvis Cocker around in a giant shopping trolley for that Pulp video, Sadie Frost is actually a better actress than the sneerers will tell you – and it’s not ogling eyes talking.
Yes, she’s got to 43 before making this West End debut, hardly a track record to make the Royal Shakespeare Company blush.
And, yep, people often ask what’s she been doing since appearing in the Common People video, as if she has been trapped within a cartoon supermarket all her life.
But rather than sit about at home wondering when the paps will get off her doorstep, she has been courageous enough to tackle this one-woman monologue in a bear-pit of a theatre.
One false move and the audience – so close to the stage that they are almost cuddled up with her on her bed – will rumble her.
She doesn’t get caught out, holding her ground and wavering on only a couple of lines. Yet in telling the story of a girl, Lesley, growing up fascinated by the sounds and behaviour of Madonna, she might have wished for slightly better planning.
There are clever lines and good observations about life in Thatcher’s Britain, dating and some really witty stuff about Madonna’s
transformation from saucy rebel to lady of the manor and back again.
But the script has a “How do we finish it?” feel, as if a good idea ran out of steam before Ray Of Light can replace Material Girl on the soundtrack.
The 80 minutes roll by but, while there is no reason to get fidgety, there is nothing spectacular in the narrative or the social commentary either.
Producer Imogen Lloyd Webber – she sat next to her famous dad on the night I was there – can at least be proud of Sadie’s efforts to bring this hit and miss tale to life.
It’s not just Frost’s name that lifts this production from fringe theatre quality, her performance is mature enough to mix despair with light comedy, and sympathy for her character’s naivety. She deserves another challenge on the West End stage.
Booking to March 17
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