This stage musical about the legendary
record label founded by Berry Gordy focuses its story on Berry Gordy;
based on the autobiography of Berry Gordy, the script is written by…
you guessed it. Gordy, a songwriter and producer rather than a
performer, seems to get more numbers to sing than figures such as Diana
Ross or Marvin Gaye; the character of Gaye even cedes to Gordy the lead
on “What’s Going On”, which in reality Gordy disliked so much Gaye had
to go on strike to secure its release.
OK, so it’s a hagiography: a modern, feet-of-clay hagiography, showing
Gordy as too driven and ambitious, rather like a job applicant
“admitting” that their greatest weakness is perfectionism. And it cuts
corners sometimes too conveniently: the narrative framing device is the
label’s 25th-anniversary celebration in 1983, i.e. the year before Gaye
was murdered (and five before Gordy sold the label). But for every
omission, or every saccharine misstep such as the Diana-Ross-in-Vegas
audience-participation segment, there is a laudable inclusion.
This is not simply the story of how a young Detroit man discovered
artists such as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations and
the Four Tops as well as the aforementioned and founded a musical hit
factory such as has never been seen before or since. Gordy is keenly
aware that Motown stood as a beacon of hope to black Americans, and he
does not stint on showing the more radical social currents of the 1960s
in particular; even the Detroit riots get a look-in.
And, of course, it’s a joy to hear all those spine-tingling classic
tunes, even if coloratura-compulsive Cedric Neal as Gordy can never
quite stick to them. My God, but there are a lot of them, from “Reet
Petite” via “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” (both Gaye and Gladys
Knight versions) to “Super Freak”: even the programme grows coy, but
the show seems to contain 60 or so. For all that the first half in
particular often sounds like a 1980s-style megamix this is, in both
score and narrative terms, one of the strongest jukebox musicals of
recent years.
Written for the Financial
Times.