All Sizzle, No Soul

You really notice uncomfortable theater seats when a show is this bad. Suffering through Thoroughly Modern Millie in London's Shaftesbury Theatre, my mind keeps coming back to the lack of legroom in the middle rows of the 92-year-old playhouse. The screaming colors of the Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan musical — purple and orange skyscrapers, dancing typists in green tights — do nothing to ease the discomfort. The show, an adaptation of the 1967 Julie Andrews film about an independent girl in 1920s New York City, is glitzy, but synthetic and charmless — the songs aggressively brash, the desperation to provide...