PATRICK MARMION reviews Titanique at the Criterion Theatre in London: Titanic fun...with Celine's doppelganger

Titanique (Criterion Theatre, London)

Rating:

The siren call of Celine Dion is very great. The queen of power ballads' tooth-loosening vibrato and enamel-melting schmaltz could even pose a danger to shipping. 

But do not let that stop you from booking your passage on this musical spoof of James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic.

Astonishing Welsh Celine doppelganger Lauren Drew hijacks a guided tour at the sunken ship's visitor centre to tell the 'true' (as in delusional) story of how she survived the famous wreck.

Fuelled by Celine top tunes, what follows is 100 minutes of cast-iron, ocean-going hysteria on the high Cs. 

We also learn that the heart-shaped diamond given to Kate Winslet's character Rose is not from Asprey & Garrard but Claire's; her mother's pearls came from TK Maxx; and her millionaire fiancé has a doughnut wall on Pinterest. 

Compering her own glitterball fantasies, Drew's sinuous and athletic Celine wears a wig of cascading blonde curls and a sequinned dress split to the summit, as she eagerly leaps between actors while telling her side of the story.

Not only does Drew have the larynx for the chanteuse's lung-busters (including the climactic My Heart Will Go On), she is on-song with Celine's bizarre French-Canadian accent. 

And yet, Kat Ronney damn-near steals the show from under Celine's flaring nostrils with a glorious turn as Rose. 

Ronney is a sensational actor, with big believing eyes, a whopping warble in songs like To Love You More, and deliciously lewd instincts in her steamy sex scene number Because You Loved Me (featuring a plastic aubergine).

Rob Houchen, as her steerage lover Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio's role in the film), holds his end up as a randy opportunist, before being cuffed for stealing the diamond and despatched 'downstairs with Dua Lipa'.

This is one of the merriest performances I've seen in the West End, with every actor eyeballing the audience, to check that they're eyeballing right back.

The company pull together like galley slaves, whether it be Jordan Luke Gage's millionaire Cal and his left-field falsetto, or Layton Williams's frosty Tina Turner drag-queen announcing the sinking of the Titanic with: 'I'm the iceberg, b*tch!', triggering a RuPaul-style drag race.

The principal audience for Richard J. Hinds's outrageous production may be Celine nuts, Titanic boffins, hen nights and drag parties. 

But if you ask me, it has the mass appeal to run for months, even years. Titanique? C'est fantastique!

The Lightening Thief (The Other Palace Theatre, London)

Rating:

Based on the first of Rick Riordan's kids' novels, The Lightning Thief is basically Greek mythology revitalised as a high school musical — with a touch of Dora The Explorer's kindergarten adventures.

Untroubled by the 2010 film's CGI, it's a home-spun geek-fest in which our demigod (half-man, half-god) hero, Percy Jackson, has to recover Zeus's lost lightning bolt from the Underworld. 

Diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, misfit Percy is accompanied on his quest, like Dora on her quests, by trusted buddies — Grover (the god Pan's chosen successor and friend of squirrels), and Annabeth (daughter of the goddess Athena and slayer of egos).

And, just like Dora, Percy has an all-important backpack containing specialist tokens (a magic pen, sea shell and bus tickets).

The fun of Joe Tracz and Rob Rokicki's mostly soft-rock musical lies in its inventive staging and narrative zip. 

Best lyric: 'Things couldn't be worse, when your parents run the universe.'

On the rusty dystopian set, grungy costumes are supplemented by animal leg wear for the half-animal characters, plus moments of rock-god couture, as human, equine and immortal identities shift and collide.

Heroically, Morgan Gregory stood in for an indisposed Max Harwood the night I was in, and proved a very capable, driven yodeller as Percy. 

Also fun were Scott Folan's goofy Grover and Jessica Lee's feisty Annabeth. But it's a team effort, preoccupied with adolescent issues of friendship and self-esteem.

Older patrons may prefer to book for their teenage kids and enjoy a super-powered night off in the pub next door.

Titanique runs until March 30; The Lightning Thief until August 31.

Five diary dates for 2025 

Tickets will be hotter than for a Liverpool-Real Madrid Champions League Final… on a five-a-side pitch: yes, the show I’m most excited about is Red Or Dead. And I’m an Arsenal fan.

Guttural Glaswegian Peter Mullan plays legendary Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly at the city’s Royal Court Theatre, in a play based on David Peace’s novel about the spiky Scotsman.

What chance it’ll turn out to be a one-song musical? With that single tune purloined from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel? Can you guess which one? (March 21-April 19, liverpoolsroyalcourt.com.)

A new play by Conor McPherson (Irish author of The Weir) is always cause for celebration. Starring Chris O’Dowd (right) and the formidable Rosie Sheehy, The Brightening Air sticks to McPherson’s Chekhovian form: a spooky tale, set in a decaying Irish farmhouse. (April 10-June 14, oldvictheatre.com.)

Before Hayley Atwell (below) went stratospheric with Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible, she was one of the mightiest stage actresses in the land. So good luck to Tom Hiddleston. The Loki star comes up against her

Beatrice when he plays Benedick in Jamie Lloyd’s production of Shakespeare’s timeless comedy of warring lovers, Much Ado About Nothing, at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. (February 10-April 5, lwtheatres.co.uk.)

Paul Mescal may have been the household name in the Almeida Theatre’s production of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, which returns to the West End for a short run before heading to New York.

But the real star turn came from the sensational Patsy Ferran, the best Blanche DuBois I’ve seen, despite stepping in as a last-minute substitute. (February 3-22, Noel Coward Theatre, London, streetcarwestend.com.)

The mention of Krapp’s Last Tape is enough to make my normally mild-mannered wife’s hackles rise. 

So I avoid Samuel Beckett’s barely hour-long play, about an old man reviewing recordings of the wreckage of his life.

But in the rumpled shape of Slow Horses’ Gary Oldman (above), who rarely ventures on stage these days, York’s Theatre Royal has found the perfect match for the irascible Krapp. (April 14-May 17, yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.)