the mommy avenger

Confession time (you know I have to start there): I am a Jersey girl through and through, and if you know anything about Jersey girls, you know Sinatra runs through our veins the way the Parkway runs through our state. He’s ours — Hoboken born and raised — and growing up, his voice was just always there. Playing out of open windows on summer nights, filling up diners and delis, soundtracking every wedding and every wake. You don’t have to be a superfan in Jersey to know every word to “That’s Life.” It just gets into you. So when I heard Sinatra: The Musical was making its West End debut at the Aldwych Theatre, there was zero chance I wasn’t going. This wasn’t just another night of theater for us — this felt personal.

We walked in with sky-high expectations. Maybe too sky-high. But more on that in a minute.

The show drops you right into New Year’s Eve, 1942 — Frank is a skinny 27-year-old with a voice about to change music history, standing in the wings of New York’s Paramount Theatre. From there, it weaves back and forth through his meteoric rise, his marriage to his first wife, Nancy, his all-consuming romance with Hollywood’s Ava Gardner, and the very public, very brutal fall from grace that came with a hostile press and a stalled career — before he claws his way back into one of the greatest comeback stories show business has ever seen.

It’s a big, sweeping life to try to fit onto one stage, and honestly, they do a solid job of hitting the major beats. If you know even the broad strokes of Sinatra’s story, you’ll recognize the shape of it here: the ambition, the women, the mob rumors nipping at the edges, the reinvention. It moves. It doesn’t drag. And structurally, it’s a well-built book.

Now let’s talk about Joel Harper-Jackson, because good grief. Stepping into Frank Sinatra’s shoes is no small task — the voice, the phrasing, the swagger — and he absolutely delivers. There’s a real intelligence to how he plays Frank, too; he doesn’t just do an impression, he builds an actual person underneath the legend, someone who’s charming and magnetic but also insecure and a little bit lost. Vocally, he’s got the control and the ease that Sinatra’s catalog demands, which is no joke when you’re covering more than twenty of the most beloved songs in American music.

He’s surrounded by serious talent, too. Ana Villafañe brings a sultry, headstrong energy to Ava Gardner that makes every scene between the two of them crackle, and Phoebe Panaretos gives Nancy a quiet dignity that kept tugging at me even when she wasn’t the one center stage. And Jenna Russell as Dolly, Frank’s mother? A total scene-stealer every time she opened her mouth. This is a cast that is clearly giving it everything they have, every single night.

Okay, here’s my honest mom-in-the-audience moment. I wanted to be swept away. I wanted to leave that theater the way I do after the best jukebox musicals, with my whole chest full. And I did have a great night — I want to be clear about that. But it didn’t quite blow me away the way I was hoping it would, and I’ve been chewing on why.

I think it comes down to this: I would have loved a deeper, more emotionally excavated dive into who Frank actually was — his relationships, his fears, the mess underneath the myth — rather than a tour through the highlight reel of his life. And when it came to the music, there were moments where a song landed so naturally in the story that it gave me chills. But there were other moments where I could feel the seams — like a song was being placed because it’s a beloved Sinatra classic and the audience expects it, rather than because the story truly needed it right there, in that moment. It’s a fine line in any jukebox musical, and this one doesn’t always walk it. When it works, it really works. When it doesn’t, you can feel the story pause so the hit can happen.

So, should you see it? Yes — go. Truly. It’s an enjoyable, well-performed night out with a genuinely talented cast and a catalog of music that doesn’t have a weak song in it. As a Jersey girl who grew up on Frank, I’m glad I went, and I’d happily go sit in that audience again. I just walked out wishing the story had trusted itself — and its subject — a little more, and let the music grow out of Frank’s life instead of being laid on top of it.

If you love Sinatra, or you just love a good, glamorous night at the theater, book your tickets here: sinatramusical.com

Sinatra: The Musical is playing now at the Aldwych Theatre in London’s West End.

^{*we were invited to facilitate a feature, all opinions are our own*}