Sammy: a real insight

He was an inspiration to many but, unlike "Lady Day" Billie Holiday, the life of legendary entertainer Sammy Davis Jr has hardly begun to be excavated. All credit then to Femi Elufowoju Jr and his Tiata Fahodzi company, developed within the shadow of Joan Littlewood's old stamping ground, Theatre Royal Stratford East, for starting the ball rolling.

Sammy, carrying the blessing of the Sammy Davis Jr Foundation is unlikely to be the last word. There are just too many paradoxes about the one-eyed, black, Jewish Royal Command Performance regular and member of the Sinatra Rat Pack. A supporter of both JFK and Richard Nixon, civil rights marcher and member of the Satanist Church, Davis died penniless in 1990 owing $7.5 million in tax.

Only a glimmer of this begins to be explored in a show that takes a safer "Fame" route: five ambitious hopefuls (based on Davis's friends) auditioning to play him for a fictional show being produced by West End impresario, Hillard Elkins (Peter Straker).

In fact, the audition format is fairly spurious. By the second half, it's all but been jettisoned leaving space for Straker and the young cast to do what they do best; singing and dancing up a storm.

Warren Wills's musical arrangements sometimes strike one as unduly idiosyncratic, but Elufowoju and director Kerry Michael hit the right note of modern (if sympathetic) query when, through Straker's Hilly they ask: "Why did Davis have to go on smiling all the time rather than letting us understand him better by seeing some of the pain?" Straker it is who brings the house down with his rendering of the classic Mr Bojangles. But, as Sammy might have wanted it, it's the youngsters who, properly, are given their chance to shine.

Sammy is showing at the Theatre Royal, Stratford until November 23. Box office: 020 8534 0310.