Theatre review: Mamma Mia!, Playhouse, Edinburgh

HERE it comes again, in a brand-new UK touring version. It’s the queen of all tribute musicals; the one that truly listens to the songs – in this case the great 1970s and 80s hits of Abba – then lovingly incorporates 21 of them into the action, and actually bothers to construct a fictional drama around their mood and message.

Donna and the Dynamos do a storming Super Trouper

Mamma Mia!, Playhouse, Edinburgh ****

Now 20 years old, Catherine Johnson’s global blockbuster musical tells the tale of young Sophie Sheridan, brought up on a Greek island by her proudly single mum Donna, gloriously played this time by a funny and passionate Sharon Sexton. Sophie (brilliant RCS graduate Emma Mullen) is about to marry her lovely fiance, Sky; but in a desperate effort to find out who her dad is before the big day, she reads Donna’s diary for the summer when she was conceived, and invites the three men who are in the frame.

Cue every kind of emotional crisis and accompanying musical number, from Sophie’s scuba-diving nightmare to Under Attack, through a dizzying version of Super Trouper performed by Donna and her two former girl-group chums, to Sexton’s show-stopping performance of The Winner Takes It All. The choreography by Anthony van Laast is superb, and Phyllida Lloyd’s direction beyond praise, for its pace, wit and depth of feeling.

And in the end, the message has something to do with female empowerment through fierce and eloquent emotional honesty; and also with male fulfilment through wholehearted support for that fabulous female energy. Joyce McMillan