The Cher Show
★★★★☆ Boisterous
Church Hill Theatre: Tue 11 – Sat 15 Nov 2025
Review by Thom Dibdin
Allegro come out canny with their big and incorrigibly bold production of The Cher Show at the Church Hill Theatre to Saturday, engaging fully with Cher’s story, her hits and the legend she has become.
This might promise to go full fizz from the very first note of If I Could Turn Back Time, but Neil Lavin’s direction is a lot more interesting than that. While making sure the Allegro company live up to their name – and this is a punchy as you could want – his allegro is ma non troppo, with enough light and shade to ensure that its peaks appear even more impressive.
Carol Geddie (centre) with Allegro’s The Cher Show ensemble. Pic Rachel Bolton
Rick Elice’s book casts three actors in the role of Cher, herself. A trio who represent the three ages of the iconic star, who is notorious for reinventing herself several times, whether defining herself as Cher not Cheryl, dropping Sonny, stepping out onto Broadway or going for an Oscar.
Cathy Geddie frames the whole thing as Star, the older, wiser version of Cher. Geddie has all the necessary attitude for one who has conquered her own demons and learned that “being a goddess warrior isn’t not being scared – it is being shit-scared and facing it anyway.”
Geddie certainly has the musical chops for the role. As do Emma Clarkson as her childhood self, Babe, facing the insecurities of life with a single mother; and Zoe Murray as the 1970’s pop star, Lady, leaving her long-running and successful partnership with Sonny Bono. All three know how to turn it up to eleven, while still maintaining clarity and tone.
goading and mentoring
Throughout the piece Star appears in the background, goading and mentoring her younger selves, helping them step up to the challenges they face as the march through Cher’s life story. The younger two drop in and out of each other’s stories, too, sometimes tagging each other in and out of the narrative, commenting on each other’s actions and life choices.
Joe Purcell and Emma Clarkson. Pic: Rachel Bolton
As Babe, Clarkson gets to have the most rounded of characters. Her Babe is property naive and ill-at-ease in her own skin. She creates a great rapport with Eilidh Todd as Cher’s mother, Georgia Holt. Todd is quite the backstage mum, both wise and pushy, giving her daughter the attitude which would define her career.
It’s all great fun, as she meets Joe Purcell’s Sonny, first trying out as a backing singer for Phil Spector with Da Doo Ron Ron and Be My Baby, then going full blown with the Shoop Shoop Song and finally joining with him to drop into the Sonny and Cher Show roles the pair were to inhabit with I Got You Babe.
Murray has less nuanced material to work with for Star, but a bundle more attitude as Cher shucks off the increasingly controlling Sonny and takes up with Gregg Allman – a preposterously bewigged Craig Atkins – and then the much younger Rob Camilleti (Darren Johnson).
functional story points
Atkins and Johnson both have the pipes for their roles, while their characters help provide functional story points. Gregg’s testosterone stand-off with Sonny emphasising the tendency of men to think they can decide Cher’s future. Rob’s non-celebrity status helping mark out the intensity of Cher’s life in the public eye.
Joe Purcell and Zoe Murray. Pic: Rachel Bolton
All the while the hits of what is, ultimately, a jukebox musical continue to reflect Cher’s story. And in proper jukebox musical fashion, the words reflect the story itself. Full marks to MD Louisa Everett with her 12-strong band, who provide properly driving support from the pit. And full marks too, to MM Lighting and Sound who might have got it pleasingly loud all round, but also get the mix exactly right, so the words are as clear as the actors’ diction.
Lavin’s staging is clean, and well worked with plenty of playing area for the full cast to come out dancing and singing, with a raised area upstage and a retractable catwalk trundling out over the main playing area.
A large upstage video screen provides hints at the setting. Not always perfectly: when Sonny and Cher go to London to try and get their break a BBC Top of the Pops logo sits incongruously with an equally scene-setting but spoken advert for Marmite.
clever
However it is particularly well used with a spot of live video work, providing close-ups of Cher to help emphasise the storytelling; and in one clever moment, as their partnership deteriorates, running a loop of Sonny and Cher on screen while Cher comes downstage to tell it like is, leaving the blasé Sonny still blasting out the song on his own.
Allegro’s The Cher Show ensemble. Pic: Rachel Bolton
As with all the best choreographers, Laura Green is well aware of her company’s abilities. She has drilled the ensemble well. Perhaps not with a huge number of variations in the main theme, but they are a tight unit who work their moves with precision, while her dedicated dance troupe take it up another level.
The dance is part of the storytelling too, whether it is literal as part of a backing band, or giving depth to the big solo numbers. It is at its best in a pair of Act 2 numbers. First, Hannah Barnetson is sultry and bursting with hidden energy in a tango-tastic Dark Lady, reflecting the accompanying sing-off between Sonny and Gregg.
give it laldy
Then a frankly brilliant The Beat Goes On/It Don’t Come Easy mashup features young Star and the ensemble with Stuart Williamson as costume designer Bob Mackie in attendance. It is a piece which bounces with energy as it moves emphatically through the critical points in Cher’s later career.
The 28-strong company all give it laldy. There is plenty for them to do, whether whisking set on and off, providing crowds, taking on the video camera, filling out the big numbers or dropping in as small, uncredited roles. Singly or as a big unit, they ensure this is high energy stuff from start to end,
All told this is as involving a piece of musical theatre as you could want. Oh yes, it perpetuates the Cher’s mythic status, while favouring her addiction to hard work and outrageous costumes over illicit consumption.
But by golly does it give you the hits you want and, whether you are a fan of Cher or would never knowingly add a number by her to your playlist, it tells its story with energy, conviction and plenty of attention to the details.
Running time: Two hours and 40 minutes
Church Hill Theatre, 33 Morningside Road, EH10 4DR.
Evenings: 7.30pm; Sat mat: 2.30pm.
Ticket and details: Book here.
Allegreo website: www.allegromusical.co.uk
Facebook: @allegromusical.
Instagram: @allegromusicaltheatre
X: @allegro_edin
Hannah Barnetson as Dark Lady (centre) with dance troupe and Joe Purcell (left) and Craig Atkins (right). Pic: Rachel Bolton.
ENDS
