Curve, Leicester
Molly-Grace Cutler is in fine voice in this jukebox musical but the story shortchanges the singer-songwriter’s achievements
Like her 2012 memoir, A Natural Woman, this jukebox musical is bookended by Carole King putting on a concert. The show opens and closes at New York’s Carnegie Hall in the wake of her phenomenally successful 1971 album Tapestry and traces King’s journey into the spotlight as a solo artist, focusing on her songwriting partnership with her first husband, Gerry Goffin.
Nikolai Foster’s touring production is staged with his customary elan and finds Molly-Grace Cutler in fine voice as a quirky and compassionate King. But the musical – which won Tony awards in New York in 2014 and Olivier awards in London the following year – shortchanges the singer-songwriter both in her personal and professional lives, never fully capturing her character or how she blazed a trail, on her own terms, through the industry.
