Pretty Woman at London's Savoy.

 Pretty Woman at London's Savoy.

It's hard to believe that it's been 31 years since Pretty Woman last entered our consciousness. Then we were ushering in the 1990s and Margaret Thatcher must have felt like the most reviled woman in Britain. As Prime Minister she'd polarised, alienated and then rallied the country together when the Falklands war was at its most belligerent. Then she presented Britain with the poll tax, quite clearly the worst decision she could ever have made as Prime Minister. Shop windows were unceremoniously smashed and there were the kind of street riots that had rarely been seen at that point in the UK. In the end though it all blew over. 

But from nowhere the cinema provided us with a refuge, a lovely haven of escapism from the ferocious battles in the towns and cities of Britain. It was a film that took us away from the worries and woes of the world, a saucy, sassy, cheeky and sometimes outrageous film which perfectly captured the soul and topical zeitgeist of the new decade. It showed an America at its wealthiest and funniest. It reflected an America that was proud of its materialism, its soaring skyscrapers and  the investment firms that were making dollars by the million. 

The name of the film was Pretty Woman, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Gere was the smooth talking, suave, debonair, fiercely ambitious businessman with fingers in different pies such as shipping companies that were making substantial profits by the hour, week, minute and month. Gere played Edward Lewis, an immaculately suited and booted go getter, wheeler and dealer, entrepreneurial to his fingertips, a chancer and opportunist, a sealer of deals in five minutes flat and dynamic into the bargain. 

Pretty Woman is though now a spectacular West End musical playing at the Savoy Theatre in London's West End. If there's any justice it'll sell out for the next 10 years and already the reviews are rave ones guaranteed to put a smile on directors and producers faces for the first time in ages. Pretty Woman, it has to be said, was pretty cool and sensational, living up to the metaphors and adjectives that you probably see on London's Underground Tube train service. 

But personally it felt such a wondrous relief to be among the packed hordes of people thronging the West End for the first time in ages. In fact you could finally feel the pulse of London, the heartbeat of the capital city powerfully throbbing away and this was exactly what the West End needed after 18 months of pain, monumental death tolls, suffering on a quite unprecedented scale and Covid 19 oppression. 

Admittedly, the pavements weren't exactly alive with the pounding of thousands of feet but we'll get there of that there can be no doubt. The cafes and restaurants were doing a lively lunchtime trade, the half price ticket theatre booths were probably doing brisk business and that big cinema in Leicester Square, which you can remember so fondly from your youth, still looks in good nick.

But then we settled down in the Savoy Theatre in our plush seats and my wife turned around and smiled at both me and the rest of the audience. We embraced the magical aura of a West End musical and it was my lovely wife's birthday so we had to paint the town red. Pretty Woman exceeded our expectations because everything about it was recognisable and identifiable. The singing was terrific, the dancing exceptional and the characters on stage were just having a ball. It could hardly fail.

So the story is that Aimie Atkinson as Vivian Ward, Julia Roberts in the film, is the hooker, sexy, brazen, feisty, unapologetic, ruthless, wild, feral and independent. Vivian Ward, as you may well know by now, is a hooker, a prostitute, proud of her rampant femininity. Aimie Atkinson plays the role to perfection, crawling across towards Edward Lewis and wrapping her legs around him with lustful and licentious intent. Vivian, initially at least, is looking for only financial gain but then finds herself embroiled in conflicting emotions. Does she fall in love with Lewis or just leave her man?

We see the gradual unfolding of a passionate relationship that seems to get lost in the translation. Vivian is just a hooker who wants to pay her rent and surround herself in glamorous clothes. Vivian wants enough money to buy diamonds and then hunt down a man who will love her for who she wants to be. Vivian wants to settle down as a wife and bring up children without ever resorting to short skirts and high heels ever again. 

Aimie Atkinson is just an all smiling, all dancing, loose talking, free spirited girl who just wants to be loved and there can be nothing wrong with that. Edward Lewis, who became deeply and emotionally involved, simply wants to turn Vivian Ward into a lady of taste and breeding, a woman who can mix freely within high society, say the right things, eat from crockery and cutlery in the right way, remaining perfectly sweet and tactful without ever swearing because that'll never do. But she did and all hell breaks loose. 

Lewis, bathing in the role of man about town with bulging wallets of dollars in his pockets, promptly introduces Vivian into the world of high society but then gets his fingers burnt. The big party invitations are readily accepted by Ward but then she breaks every rule in the etiquette book. She sneers at convention, embarrasses Lewis and then thinks she may have got away with it. 

The story itself eventually turns into a full blooded musical, songs flooding the Savoy like an old Victorian nickelodeon. The choreography of course is just stunning and there was just an old fashioned elegance about the production that most of us have missed terribly. This was a story about man and woman relationships, their dynamics, lots of slushy romance and then dollops of fun. Pretty Woman is funny, cute, very humane, warm and what happens when money gets in the way of what begins as a sleazy alliance between man and woman but then flourishes into something that could work. 

So put on your West End musical clothes, get down to the box office at the Savoy Theatre and just enjoy the capital city. It's missed all of us and we've missed it. Pretty Woman is a big, bolshy, carefree, wanton and spellbinding musical. It doesn't care and nor do we. You could always make an evening of it since Christmas and Chanukah are just around the corner and Leicester Square is ready and waiting. Go for it.