Reviews

Marguerite

Theatre Royal Haymarket, London
Jonathan Kent
2008

Henshall and Ovenden are pretty impressive in both the acting and the singing departments. She can be haughty but also broken, forlorn, poignant. He manages to be intense without being sententious and rapturous without seeming wet. And how refreshing to hear voices that cope with every note in songs which, as composed by Michel Legrand and accoutred with plain, bold lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, soar and dive in often hummable ways.

Benedict Nightingale, The Times, 21 May 2008

Ruthie Henshall, passionate in red velvet, is a dynamic Marguerite.

Michael Billington, Guardian, 21 May 2008

The strong ensemble works extremely hard and Henshall simply acts her socks off in the title role.

Lisa Martland, The Stage, 21 May 2008

The evening is saved from complete mediocrity by Paul Brown's beautiful palace-of-mirrors design and the plucky performers. Ruthie Henshall, a truly great star of musical theatre, somehow proves both poignant and sexy in the title role despite being lumbered with such workaday material.

Charles Spencer, Telegraph, 21 May 2008

Ruthie Henshall's worldly but vulnerable Marguerite is in ravishing voice. She eschews standard-issue belting and is all the more moving for the delicacy and range of colour of her delivery. And I have rarely heard singing of such ardent, youthful rapture as that which pours from the ridiculously talented and handsome Julian Ovenden, who, as Armand, also plays a mean jazz piano.

With Armand's resistance-worker sister at his mercy, Alexander Hanson's emotionally frustrated German officer forces Marguerite to write a letter of renunciation to her lover, and Henshall is heartbreaking as she sings a secret denial of her words between the callous dictated lines.

Paul Taylor, The Independent, 22 May 2008

Miss Henshall produces a performance of throaty conviction, at one point literally baring herself to the house as Marguerite descends into her inevitable pit.

Quentin Letts, Daily Mail, 22 May 2008

Ruthie Henshall’s voice becomes more mellow and rounded with time, but her control is astonishing, evinced most brilliantly in her solo How Did I Get to Where I Am?, when her voice evokes depthless despair without ever straying a note or descending into quavering.

Christopher Hart, Sunday Times, 25 May 2008

Ruthie Henshall (who has to go not just bare-breasted but semi-bald as a collaborator) is at her luscious-voiced peak.

Susannah Clapp, The Observer, 25 May 2008

Stairway to Paradise

City Center, New York
Jerry Zaks
2007

Ruthie Henshall breathes smoky-voiced sophistication into the torch songs "Memories of You" and "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye".

David Rooney, Variety, 11 May 2007

Ms. Henshall burns a torch with appropriately cool heat in ballads by Blake and Cole Porter

Ben Brantley, New York Times, 21 May 2007

The Other Woman

Emma

Ensemble Studio Theater, New York
Walter Bobbie
2006

From [David Ives] we expect a brainy, possibly zany comic jape, not this shiver-inducing erotic pas de deux, enthrallingly acted by Ruthie Henshall and Scott Cohen, and directed with delicacy by Walter Bobbie.

Ms. Henshall, a well-known star of the London musical stage, gives a touching account of Emma's increasing confusion and mistrust as an unknown presence steals into her formerly placid marriage.

Charles Isherwood, New York Times, 29 May 2006

The Woman In White

Marian Halcombe

The Palace Theatre, London
Trevor Nunn
2005-2006

Ruthie Henshall inherits Maria Friedman’s role as Marian Halcombe and finally gets the opportunity to prove her dramatic mettle. We’ve long known her abilities in light musical comedy from Crazy for You to She Loves Me but here she is a robust presence, determined to right the wrong done to her sister Laura (Alexandra Silber in a striking post-drama school debut).

Mark Shenton, The Stage, 13 October 2005

Fosse

UK Tour
Ann Reinking
2003

[Ruthie Henshall] has the kind of brilliant, high-voltage stage personality that can light up whole cities.

Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman, 4 December 2003

Peggy Sue Got Married

Peggy Sue Kelcher

The Shaftesbury Theatre, London
Kelly Robinson
2001

OLIVIER AWARD Nomination:
Best Actress in a Musical

Olivier Award winning former Chicago star Ruthie Henshall is cast in the leading role. Almost single handedly she ensures musical fidelity in the errant story of Peggy Sue's time-travelling back to her 1963 high school prom.

Ruthie Henshall provides the wind beneath the musical's wings - especially with her virtuoso, Celine Dion-like numbers. Dolled-up in pretty Fifties frocks she often seems to be performing within herself, but when she lets rip on the handful of raunchier numbers she comes into her own and threatens to put Tina Turner into retirement. And if one song carries on ringing in your ears, it is the full throttle I Can't See Myself Without You, which Henshall belts out with seismic, masonry-shaking resonance.

Evening Standard, 21 August 2001

For the clean-cut firecracker Ruthie herself, the night is a triumph, finding fun in future talk, poignancy in her own past and added power in her lungs for a succession of big emotional musical outbursts.

Daily Mail, 21 August 2001

Above all, Peggy Sue is a star vehicle for Ruthie Henshall. I'm moved to see how she reveals new aspects of herself: raunchiness on the one hand and a sorrowing composure on the other. Her singing really is the show's beating heart: intense and contemplative, soft and strong.

Alistair Macaulay, Financial Times, 21 August 2001

The show has its heart in the right place, and Henshall, recently voted Britain's most popular musical actress of the last 21 years, which must have put Elaine Paige's nose out of joint, is in marvellous form. She captures both the poignancy and the sense of liberation of a girl/woman suddenly free to explore experiences she was too timid to try in her youth. And she puts over the songs with rare power and feeling, whether it be a hymn to sexual liberation (the juicy Raw Youth) or a yearningly sentimental ballad (I Can't See Myself Without You). The first act closer, Two Kinds of Fire, a soaring, sex-soaked duet with the beatnik biker (Tim Howar), is a knockout.

Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 24 August 2001

Having made her Broadway debut in Chicago Ruthie Henshall is back on home ground in the world premiere of a new musical. It looks likely West End audiences will welcome her back with open arms.

The songs featuring the high school harmony group make perfect pop pastiche, while This Time Around has Henshall proving why she is one of this country's most popular and well respected musical theatre stars.

Lisa Martland, The Stage, 26 August 2001

Putting It Together

The Younger Woman

The Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York
Eric D. Schaeffer
1999

Henshall is here revealed to Broadway as a performer of major gifts, who can suggest a cockney tart one minute, Julie Andrews herself the next. She's all sultry languor crooning "Sooner or Later," the rather bland torch song from "Dick Tracy," and later savvily tackles the tongue-in-cheek lyrics of "More," also from the film.

Charles Isherwood, Variety, 22 November 1999

Ruthie Henshall brings her beguiling physical vigor and subversive mischief to Sondheim's paean to greed, More.

David Patrick Stearns, USA Today, 22 November 1999< /p>

Chicago

Velma Kelly

The Shubert Theatre, New York
Walter Bobbie
1999

As the homicidal hoofers who are, as one of them puts it, a lot older than they ever intended to be, Ruthie Henshall and Charlotte d'Amboise are absolutely energizing, the perfect pick-me-ups for a long-running-show in the dog days of summer. These lithe, very lively performers bring a bright new complexion to the Broadway version, making another visit to the Shubert Theater essential.

Replacement stars are rarely an unconditional blessing. You certainly don't want watered-down imitations of originals; on the other hand, a radical reconception of a major part can throw a production out of kilter. The satisfactions of Ms. Henshall's and Ms. d'Amboise's performances come from how they stay comfortably within an established framework while bringing their own transforming vitality.

Ann Reinking and Bebe Neuwirth, the original Roxie and Velma of this revival, were deliciously mannered and coldblooded, brilliant studies in exhibitionist technique and Brechtian distance. (Ute Lemperer, who earlier took over from Ms. Neuwirth, took this style to an even further extreme.)

Ms. d'Amboise and Ms. Henshall are more hotblooded. Their Roxie and Velma wear their ravenous appetites as close to their skins as their leotards. You sense it in Ms. Henshall's dangerous, glimmering gaze and toothsome predator's smile; in the way Ms. d'Amboise, in that musical exercise in narcissism called ''Roxie,'' bathes in the idea of her own fame, running her hands gloatingly over her body.

Ms. Henshall, a perennial favorite of the West End in London, seems destined to conquer Manhattan as well. (She'll be in ''Putting It Together,'' the Sondheim revue, on Broadway this fall.) She definitely has what it takes: the voice, the dancer's flair and strength, the confidence and that elusive spark of eccentricity that separates the stars from the chorus. As Velma, she has style in spades but she also flirts chillingly with something darker at the character's core.

Ben Brantley, New York Times, 7 July 1999

Henshall sports a sleek black bob that at times lends her a striking resemblance to indie film darling Parker Posey. She has an enticingly voluptuous voice, with a husky edge that slips away when she is singing at full throttle in a sometimes belting, sometimes sweetly crooning tone. Hers is not the saltiest or earthiest of Velmas; Henshall's innate elegance keeps peeking through Velma's hard-bitten exterior, lending real class, for instance, to "Class," the show's satiric lament for that vanishing quantity. (Roz Ryan, her partner on that tune, is also a relative newcomer to the Broadway cast, and a terrific vocal asset as Mama Morton.) But Henshall is thoroughly charismatic, amusingly affecting a creditable Midwestern accent occasionally undercut by mock-posh tones.

Charles Isherwood, Variety, 7 July 1999

The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936

Gertrude Niesen

City Center, New York
Mark Waldrop
1999

The unforgettable revelation was Britain's Ruthie Henshall in the Gertrude Niesen roles. A performer of pleasing but not sensational aspect, she entered from the wings, took a few steps centerward, and stopped (along with the spectators' hearts), making the stage and auditorium her private property. Like some sort of human vortex, she drew us all into herself. Then she sang that great, under-appreciated Gershwin-Duke song "Words Without Music," and went from heart-stopper to showstopper as voice, stance, and expression merged into pure triple crème.

Simon John, New York Magazine, 24 May 1999

The most stunning spot is "Words without Music," a stormy torch song. Ruthie Henshall sings it in a smoke-tinged voice, and she is absolutely marvelous. She has made a couple of Broadway visits since this stint — most visibly in Stephen Sondheim's Putting It Together — but we have yet to see her tear up the stage like she did at Encores!

"That Moment of Moments" is one of those boy-and-girl-in love duets, but Duke's off-beat emphasis — and the ascending scale in the bridge that gives way to a falling octave — keep our interest. It's especially well performed by Ms. Henshall — in a happier mood than in her other solo — and Howard McGillin, who sparks the recording throughout with his enthusiastic take on the typical tenor who brings on the girls.

Gershwin and Duke, and Rob Fisher and the orchestrators, and Ruthie Henshall and McGillin and the rest, combine to make Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 well worth the 65-year wait.

Steven Suskin, Playbill Online, 16 December 2001

Chicago

Roxie Hart

The Adelphi Theatre, London
Walter Bobbie
1997-1998

OLIVIER AWARD Nomination:
Best Actress in a Musical

Miss Henshall, an energetic delight from start to finish, reveals unexpected dirty depths.

Michael Coveney, Daily Mail, 19 November 2007

Miss Henshall as killer turned singer Roxie Hart is a revelation, cool and sexy with a beautiful voice matched by assured comic timing.

David Lister, The Independent, 19 November 2007

Ruthie Henshall [is] in stunning form as Roxie. There's something of Liza Minnelli, Audrey Hepburn and Victoria Chaplin rolled into one in this pert, precise, pixie-faced actress.

Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday, 23 November 2007

Henshall draws us in with a contained energy that serves her numbers superbly.

Robert Butler, Independent on Sunday, 23 November 2007

Divorce Me, Darling

Polly Brockhurst

Chichester Festival Theatre
Paul Kerryson
1997

Ruthie Henshall plays Polly, the heroine whose marriage to an English aristo has hit an acrid patch. Footloose in Nice, she meets up with an old friend Bobby (Tim Flavin) and begins a dalliance that echoes Private Lives. Henshall captures a lovely note of elegiac regret, while the bell-like purity of her voice is a joy.

Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 17 July 1997

Ruthie Henshall and Tim Flavin both starred in the sensational Crazy For You but, sadly, not at the same time. Together at last, they show the rest of the cast how it should be done. Their ever-so-slightly dangerous emotions are never overplayed and they have a genuine unforced charm that makes the material float. Their Private Lives scene on adjoining balconies has a grace that lifts into dizzying delights when they dance, Henshall's long line balanced by the liquidity of Flavin's hips.

David Benedict, The Independent, 17 July 1997

Ruthie Henshall is superb - wistful, graceful, sharp and truly touching.

Georgina Brown, Night & Day, 10 August 1997

She Loves Me

Amalia Balash

The Savoy Theatre, London
Scott Ellis
1994

OLIVIER AWARD:
Best Actress in a Musical

Ruthie Henshall, who enjoyed such deserved success in Crazy For You last year, is in equally winning form here. She has a wonderful voice, strong and sweet and clear, ad she delivers the wistful love songs with an overpowering depth of feeling. But there's nothing saccharine about Miss Henshall. There's a beguiling sense of mischief about her performance and the word feisty might have been invented to describe her.

Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph

If rediscovering the joys of this show has been one of the delights of summer, it is matched by Ruthie Henshall, its starry leading lady. Ms Henshall is that rare commodity: a British gal with the kind of galvanic voice and personality rarely encountered this side of 42nd Street. She is the jewel in the crown of a show encrusted with gems.

Clive Hirschhorn, Sunday Express

The touchingly desolate Miss Henshall, with her pure, flexible voice beautifully sings Will He Like Me? in appropriate tones of anxiety and longing.

Nicholas de Jongh

Ruthie Henshall is quite superb as the romantic lead Amalia. Her singing voice is fabulous and, for once, the opening night ovation was well deserved.

Louise Doughty

Crazy For You

Polly Baker

The Prince Edward Theatre, London
Mike Ockrent
1993-1994

OLIVIER AWARD Nomination:
Best Actress in a Musical

As the leather-lunged local cowgirl, Ruthie Henshall steps into the star's limelight. Miss Henshall can belt her way through showstoppers such as I Got Rhythm like a trouper, then melt your heart with eternal love songs such as Someone To Watch Over Me or But Not For Me in a way the great Ethel could never do.

Jack Tinker, Daily Mail

I have no reservations about Ruthie Henshall as the spunky, sexy girl who wins his heart: as well as finding all the humour in the role, she gives spine-tingling renditions of two of Gershwin's most touching songs, Embraceable You and the lovely But Not For Me.

Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 4 March 1993

Ruthie Henshall can hold a note that turns through the colours of the rainbow.

Irving Wardle, Independent on Sunday, 7 March 1993

The star of the show is Ruthie Henshall as Polly. The ideal musical-comedy heroine, she sings as well as she dances and, despite the inane plot, makes you care.

Clive Hirschhorn, Sunday Express, 7 March 1993

Follow The Star

Mary

Chichester Festival Theatre
1991-1992

Take one familiar story, add twist of lemon, blend with original music, season with pantomime, and hey presto - you've got Follow The Star!

But wait, I forgot the secret ingredient that makes this dish fit for the king of kings. It is supplied by the new star I'll be following, Ruthie Henshall.

In "We'll Always Love Him" Mary relates a vision of the Crucifixion - and Ruthie Henshall's singing of it has a tender, expressive power that brought a tear even to this hard-hearted critic's eye.

Her pure tone, untainted by emotional indulgence, is all the more moving because she has earlier belted out an upbeat number in the grand manner.

Mike Allen, November 1991

A Chorus Line

Maggie

UK tour
Baayork Lee
1987

Undoubtedly the finest singing of the evening comes from Ruthie Henshall, as Maggie, who teams up with Samantha Hughes and Taffy Taylor for some splendid harmony in the haunting song, At The Ballet.

Chris Gray, Oxford Mail, 21 April 1987