"A star is well and truly reborn at Trafalgar Studios where Tracie Bennett brings to vivid last-gasp-of-life Judy Garland ... Over the days of the play, high hopes turn to high drama as Judy's personal demons rear their ugly heads ... The two men currently in her life... tussle for dominance, one offering a chance of escape, the other switching from protector to force-feeding enabler. Tracie Bennett is a performer who I've always admired for her abundant verve ... With Garland, in full amphetamine-fuelled frenzy and paranoid desperation, Bennett has the role of her career and she gives it the performance of her life ... Bennett's Garland veers from comedy to rage to pathos, a manipulative, out-of-control mess."

Terri Paddock (Whatsonstage.com)

"It is not often that an audience rises in unison as if wired together like a table-footie team. It happened for Tracie Bennett;s extraordinary performance as Judy Garland ... Bennett comes garlanded with best supporting awards, but this is stardom. But Peter Quilter's beautifully structured script asks far more, even musically ... She has to lose it on stage, tangle in the mike lead, shriek out a number wired on pep pills, or, alone on the carpet, choke tearfully through 'The Man that Got Away' ... And she has to be a wit, a wiseacre, someone to like ... Terry Johnson's direction is clear and unfussy, and the balance... is particularly fine."

Libby Purves (The Times)

"Unless they have some radical new information to impart, I could happily accept a moratorium on all bio-plays about Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Maria Callas. This one by Peter Quilter reprises the sad saga of Garland's last days ... But its only real virtue is that it gives Tracie Bennett a chance to offer an impressively plausible portrait of the doomed star both on and off stage ... Fortunately this melancholy saga is interspersed with glimpses of Garland in action singing some of her bestknown songs."

Michael Billington (Guardian)

"In Peter Quilter's bio-drama Garland is brought vividly to life by Tracie Bennett. Deftly directed by Terry Johnson ... Quilter uses the London concerts Garland gave right at the end of her life as an opportunity to delineate the agonies of her inexorable decline. His Judy is a troubled, erratic diva ... Bennett's performance is courageous ... raw, emotional and astonishingly energetic. It's much more than a skilful impersonation; it feels as if she has assimilated the essence of Garland's personality."

Henry Hitchings (Evening Standard)

"It?s a terrible old cliche that it takes a star to play a star ... but in the case of Judy Garland there never has been and never will be a star big enough to fill her tiny red shoes ... During the course of Peter Quilter's play with songs End of the Rainbow the amazing Tracie Bennett finds it."

Edward Seckerson (The Independent Online)

"There are moments in the theatre when you lean forward in your seat with shivers racing down the spine, and realise there is nowhere on God's earth you'd rather be ... End of the Rainbow is one such occasion, offering one of the greatest musical theatre performances I have ever witnessed. Tracie Bennett's star turn as Judy Garland in the last raddled months of her life is blackly comic, deeply harrowing and superbly sung, and will be talked about for years to come ... Judy Garland's long, sad decline has become the stuff of showbiz cliche ... Yes, it's upsetting to watch as the declining star attempts to drag herself on stage yet again ... but there is also something heroic about it ... Set in 1968, Garland... has a new fiance in tow, a former discotheque manager ... She is reunited, too, with her gay MD and accompanist, played with wry wit and great tenderness by Hilton McRae, who, unlike her fiance, loves her unconditionally ..."

Charles Spencer (Daily Telegraph)

"The danger with writing a play about such an iconic figure as Judy Garland, is that it can become a bit too much of a fact-checking exercise. Thankfully Peter Quilter's sublime script secretes more than enough exposition within the narrative whilst creating a real sense of drama and pathos."

Paul Vale (TheStage.co.uk)

Reviews: Published on Tuesday 24 November 2010 at 15:28