If Sinatra: the Man and His Music is to be believed, one of the greatest singers in pop history was also one of the greatest men of the 20th century – a fearless campaigner against racial prejudice, a stalwart of liberalism, a great father, sullied by unjust rumours about the mafia and his personal life. Well, it is a show enthusiastically endorsed by the Sinatra family – Frank’s daughter Nancy emerges at the curtain call for a tearful address to the audience – so one might expect a certain amount of whitewashing (there’s a section devoted to JFK; but no mention of Sinatra’s fury when the Kennedys dropped him or his desertion to cheerleading for Ronald Reagan). Nevertheless, as long as you remember this is at heart a piece of propaganda on a North Korean scale, it’s two hours that zips by with barely a pause for breath.
The conceit is to sort-of tell the Sinatra life story – a live big band belts out the songs, while dancers pirouette at front of stage, underneath a series of screens that show Sinatra singing, his voice atop the band. More screens show photos, headlines and film footage from his life, while between songs his disembodied voice describes incidents from his life. At times the juxtapositions are extremely odd – what did poor Mia Farrow do to deserve being the visual accompaniment to My Funny Valentine? (“Is your figure less than Greek? Is your mouth a little weak? When you open it to speak, are you smart?”) And because the production requires songs Sinatra performed on TV, some of the performances are less than stellar: the version of I’ve Got You Under My Skin doesn’t come within hailing distance of the recording on Songs for Swingin’ Lovers. Luck Be a Lady, meanwhile, doesn’t bother with Sinatra’s voice at all – just images of playing cards, dice and roulette wheels. You half expect Ray Winstone’s disembodied head to appear on the screens urging you to “Bet in-show, nooooooowwww.”
But to hear a big band belting out the arrangements of Nelson Riddle, Axel Stordahl, Gordon Jenkins et al is a thrill, and a reminder that before rock’n’roll, pop was sophisticated stuff. By the late 60s, Brian Wilson was hailed as a genius for putting orchestral arrangements on Beach Boys records, but that had been commonplace barely a decade before. Sinatra himself took the craft of music seriously – in concert he would routinely name the writers of each song he performed – and it’s a shame, if inevitable, that this show has to focus entirely on the singer, rather than the writers, arrangers and musicians who provided Sinatra with the music for him to sing over.
Be warned, though: for all the lack of a star, this is not a budget night out. The top price of £125 seems like an awful, awful lot to watch film of a man singing, no matter how delightfully it’s accessorised.
• Until 10 October. Buy tickets from theguardianboxoffice.com or call 0330 333 6906.