Alan Menken’s attractive, gospel-inflected score kicks in and those
soon-to-be swinging sisters introduce themselves marvellously in
How I Got the Calling. Helped along by Anthony Van Laast’s
energetic choreography, they supply a stream of cherishable
images: a can-can line of nuns in gaudy surplices, and then an ad
hoc convent pyjama party as they pray away late-night nerves before
the climactic encounter with His Holiness.
There’s further fun to be had courtesy of the Deloris-chasing
hoodlums who croon a Barry White-esque ode to nun-wooing, Lady
In The Long Black Dress. Yet there can be no disputing the evening’s
main draw: 24-year-old Miller, who fills this huge stage with so many
bundles of star quality that another dressing room will surely have to
be found for them all.
Her magnificent voice is rich, soaring and, crucially, unflagging.
She might have been unknown last night, but today all that will have
changed. Take it away, sisters.
Excerpt of a review by Fiona Mountford, for the London Evening
Standard.