Jersey Boys Goes Global: The Broadway Smash Readies for London

It's one thing for Jersey Boys to rock Broadway, a locale that isn't far, after all, from the Garden State referred to in the title. But what are the Tony-winning musical's prospects overseas-”not least in a city, London, where the show's name could be thought to refer to a kind of knitwear or even, perhaps, to one of the Channel Islands? That was just one of many topics swirling good-naturedly around Soho the other day, at an elaborate launch of the musical's West End bow taking in group chats, one-to-one interviews, and the first appearance on any stage of London's four Jersey Boys - an all-British quartet that, in fact, had only met one another in full for the first time at a photo shoot two days before.

"For me, it was very strange for the first time to watch someone playing me," says the man without whom Jersey Boys simply wouldn't exist: Frankie Valli, lead singer of The Four Seasons, a group whose appeal on disc has clearly never been merely confined to one American coast or even to a single country. "Usually, they wait until you die, and then there's a play or movie about you." Not in this case. Since its first West Coast preview through to the Broadway bow and a rapturous Chicago opening just this month, Jersey Boys has been an unstoppable juggernaut. The hope is that the show's 4 million London incarnation will merely widen the appeal, even if everyone involved knows full well that London can sometimes be a tricky theatre town.

"Yeah, there's a risk," acknowledges Bob Gaudio, the group's keyboardist-songwriter standing to one side of the foyer at the Prince Edward Theatre, where Jersey Boys starts previews on 28 February and opens on 18 March. "There's no question there's a risk factor here, [but] I think we're going to overcome it. I think we have a couple of things going for us: it's familiar music, we have a generation of people that grew up with it, and we have a great show." But how do you sell the sizzle in an international capital that is arguably even more steeped in the back catalogue musical than New York has been? What's different about Jersey Boys, says Gaudio, is that "this is a biography; we're not afraid to tell the story. We didn't come up with some story to suit the music; this is the real deal. This could have been a drama - albeit one in which the much-vaunted Jersey handshake, as it were, goes global. Gaudio laughs: "That's a marvel, I have to say; that has been a marvel. [The handshake] is a very important part of the story for us; it's an important part of our relationship and dedication and honour."

Valli, in turn, is quick to point out that he never thought of Jersey Boys as a straightforward musical. For the first 43 minutes, there are no Four Seasons songs. The way it builds is really wonderful. It shows our struggling years of what it was like and what we were doing." That, in turn, comes down to a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice that is stronger than anyone had a right to expect. Elice has come to London for the launch and has his own views as to how his and Brickman's writing may land in the U.K. "It seems to me that London loves great theatre and that great theatre is all about great stories. And this show has a great story - that and the fact that the group was very popular in Britain back when their records were new. They sold a lot of records here, so the songs were familiar. But it doesn't feel like a cheat to me to get them in with that because what they get once they arrive is a really good story that hasn't been told."

Besides, says Elice, it's not as if Jersey Boys has only been seen within hailing distance of New Jersey: "We started in southern California, which I mention only insofar as it's not Four Seasons territory; it's really Beach Boys territory. When we were doing this at La Jolla, we didn't think anyone was going to come." Instead, the show was extended there again and again. "I think the reason it works is because the idea of a Jersey Boy isn't a geographical concept, it's an emotional, psychological concept. You can be a Jersey Boy and be closer to the isle of Jersey than you are to New Jersey and still understand what this story's about. It's about second families, meaning the families we choose, not the families we're born into."

Gaudio is the first to confess of the musical's trajectory so far that "the bar's been set rather high, and we are spoiled, I have to admit." Now 65, the composer has some firsthand knowledge of the vagaries of the West End: in 2001 his stage musical version of Peggy Sue Got Married, starring Ruthie Henshall, did a fast fade from the Shaftesbury Theatre, a victim to some extent of waning attendance in the immediate climate post-9/11. As regards Jersey Boys, though, "it's special," he says, "because the British audience, it seems, have dug deeper into our catalogue. And this cast is sensational. If they're in shape by opening night, and previews go well, I think this theatre's going to rock."

What of the Boys themselves? Following their unveiling, Broadway.com caught up with the sequinned young crooners who have been cast as Valli and Gaudio. Stephen Ashfield, a 27-year-old Glaswegian, was grinning at the fact that, standing 6'2", he has already been praised by his real-life counterpart for being "one of the first [stage Gaudios] that is Bob's actual height." This day must feel good, for so many reasons. "Yeah, it does," Ashfield smiles. "We've been waiting for this for quite a long time. I guess it's been about seven weeks in the coming that all of us have known we were cast but it wasn't until just recently that we knew who the other three were." (As it happens, he and his Frankie, Ryan Molloy, need no introduction, since they both appeared in the West End production of Taboo.) And though Ashfield concedes that Four Seasons mania was "a little bit before my time, certainly my parents are absolutely over the moon; they're thrilled - even my grandparents as well." The glam outfit he's wearing doesn't hurt, either. He laughs: "I think my mum will be happy with this one."

Molloy, a 32-year-old Newcastle native with white teeth and blue eyes glistening enough to be seen across the Atlantic, is still reeling from having just met Valli for the first time in the flesh. "He and Bob are such lovely guys. They're so interesting, with so much history and so many stories; they're hard-core, such real guys. You get a real electric vibe from them." That, in turn, is what Molloy, currently touring in a U.K. production of Godspell, will be working on developing for himself when he and his castmates jet off to the States later this fall for Jersey Boys "boot camp" - though Molloy, unlike Ashfield, has already seen the Broadway show.

Molloy, to that end, knows that Jersey Boys may transform his life and career as it has done States-side for Tony-winner John Lloyd Young. "Basically, I have to give up my life," he grins. "My whole life is gone. I don't need the life; I'll take the career." And as for Valli's assessment of his London younger self? "I thought [Ryan] was terrific. I'd seen a little piece of film on him in New York, and I was quite satisfied." And not for the first time, Frankie Valli beams.