Theatre reviews: Jersey Boys | The Lady Vanishes | A Respectable Widow Takes To Vulgarity

SOMETIME near the beginning of Jersey Boys, Simon Bailey – as original band member Tommy Devito – outlines for us the choices available to a working-class Italian-American kid in New Jersey in the 1950s. You could join the army, he says, or you could “get mobbed up” (ie work for local gangsters); or alternatively, you could try to become a star. Jersey Boys is the story of how Tommy and his three bandmates – fronted by legendary lead singer Frankie Valli – took the third option; and, as The Four Seasons, escaped a life of working-class drudgery and/or crime to become one of the biggest-selling pop groups of all time.