"Break a leg" are usually the last words a performer hears before they walk on stage. It is meant, ironically, to mean good luck.

Meadow Bodkin-Allen may beg to differ.

With the worst imaginable luck, Bodkin-Allen, who was cast in the lead role of Sophie for IMT's big production of Mamma Mia!, injured an ankle during a tech rehearsal last Sunday and under medical advice was advised to sit out the show's opening week.

After a flurry of urgent phone calls, at the 11th hour Sophie Harris of Christchurch was cast to temporarily replace Bodkin-Allen. This is where the story gets freaky. 

Although Sophie Harris has been cast in the same role for the Showbiz Christchurch season of Mamma Mia! later this year, she has never played the part and had never seen the script until she was handed a copy when she arrived in Invercargill on Monday.

After just three days and two rehearsals she appeared on the Civic Theatre stage tonight for the final dress rehearsal without a script, with her acting, all her lines and her dancing thoroughly seamless, looking like she’d been playing the part for years.

You can't make this stuff up. What a talent! 

We all feel for Meadow’s misfortune, but IMT has snared a stellar temp to hold her place. Sophie Harris will appear in the production until Meadow is cleared to resume her role, hopefully next week.

As we’ve come to expect from Invercargill Musical Theatre and Stephen Robertson, this Mamma Mia! is magnificent. It deserves all the accolades it will undoubtedly receive and to be seen by full houses. Is it even better than the 2014 version? I think it is. Production values have risen in the past 10 years and there are some actors on stage who are 10 years more experienced than they were last time.

Six of the cast who were in the 2014 production of this ABBA-tastic musical rom-com have returned, two of them reprising the same leading roles, Michelle Lange as Donna Sheridan and Dave McMeeking as Sam.

Lange is superb again in the pivotal role of Donna. She’s utterly riveting in every scene, the sun around whom the other players radiate, and she gives it everything.

Her BFFs the Dynamos – Alice Hildebrand (Tanya) and Ruth McSoriley (Rosie) – are a riot and, let’s face it, Sophie’s three dads – McMeeking, Craig Waddell as Bill and Taylor Ballantyne as Harry Headbanger – sing the pants off the three Hollywood actors who played the roles in the movie.

The quality of McMeeking’s vocal and emotional range as a performer is evident throughout. Like Michelle Lange, his stagecraft is all in the details.

While the stars shine brightly front of stage, there’s plenty to be entertained by right across the set. It is a ubiquitous feature of Robertson’s direction that all cast members on the stage at any time are fully engaged and connected to the action. They all contribute and the ensemble assembled for this show are an excellent crew, with Glen Harris’ snappy set-piece choreography providing exhilarating sequences.

There’s colour, dynamic lighting and sound, movement, sassy lines and raunchy action, flamboyantly executed characters, lashings of humour, dramatic tension and a greatest hits package of some of the greatest pop songs ever written. The set is invitingly familiar, and the band cooks nicely behind the backstage screen. There are some super-tasty chops in ABBA’s music, never demonstrated better than in the slinky The Name of the Game.

It’s a wonderful spectacle, a brilliantly produced and performed show.

The SBS season of Mamma Mia! opens Friday night. Tickets are selling rapidly. You really don’t want to miss out. Seriously, don’t.

Reviewer: Chris Chilton

Photographer: Robyn Edie

Producer: Invercargill Musical Theatre

Director: Stephen Robertson

Choreographer: Glen Harris

Musical Director: Michael Buick

Place: Civic Theatre, Invercargill

Dates: 12-27 July 2024

Tickets: CLICK HERE