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Accept the lead role in a musical and there’s nowhere to hide, Daniel Radcliffe. But somehow semi-competence is perfect here If this series proves anything, it is that the quality of people’s acting will always be a matter of opinion. Singing and dancing, on the other hand … Well, if you accept the lead role in a Broadway musical then there is only so much uncertainty to hide behind. As Daniel Radcliffe has just discovered. Two things emerge unanimously from the American reviews of his performance as the young window cleaner J Pierrepont Finch, who strives to scale the corporate pyramid in How to Succeed in Oh I Can’t Be Bothered You Type the Rest. The first thing: everybody wishes young Radcliffe well. The second thing: absolutely no one thinks he can sing. “As winningly game and diligent as he shows himself to be … he’s out of his league,” says Peter Marks in the Washington Post . “Radcliffe’s skills do not include showmanship, an attribute this slick part cries out for. Because carrying a tune is not the same as carrying a production, and merely talking fast does not a fast-talker make.” Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News concurs. “He shows off a pleasant singing voice,” Dziemianowicz says, “but he’s waxen and not animated enough to make Finch soar.” Even the show’s best review, in USA Today , comes to much the same conclusion. “Radcliffe relaxes enough to revel in the controlled chaos,” writes Elysa Gardner. “He also reveals, in the musical numbers, a serviceable tenor and sufficient rhythmic savvy to handle Frank Loesser’s jaunty, jazz-tinged score.” The problem, as everybody notes, is that, no matter how expertly he flaps around and gasps for breath, Radcliffe on Broadway remains a fish out of water. Or, to put it kindly – as Charles McNulty in the LA Times does – “an honest-to-goodness trouper”. “Gleaming with young-adult stardom,” McNulty continues, “Radcliffe gets an A for effort, but he doesn’t have the theatrical stature to pull together this choppy production.” In the New York Times, Ben Brantley is less indulgent. “I would give him, oh, a 6 out of 10,” he sighs, like a well-meaning but eternally disappointed maths teacher. “[Radcliffe] conscientiously hits his choreographic marks, speaks his lines quickly and distinctly (with a convincing American accent) and often sings on key … You truly want him to succeed, just as you hope a favorite athlete or hip-hop artist will avoid elimination on Dancing With the Stars. But you don’t particularly want his character in the show to succeed, and that really is a problem.” Yet, despite all this, with something that the less imaginative critics cannot resist calling wizardry, Radcliffe survives. Scott Brown at New York magazine , as he tends to, puts the matter well: “Radcliffe has often struck the ungenerous mind – mine, I mean – as a nice, lucky kid who was in the right place at the right time,” he says. “He was the boy who looked like Harry Potter, therefore Hollywood made him Harry Potter … Radcliffe, Equus aside, has always given off a just-happy-to-be-here vibe. He still does, and it might be his greatest asset here. For Finch is also a bit of a blank page, one that no one can resist filling with his or her obsessions.” Bingo! Radcliffe’s own semi-competence just happens to be suited perfectly for the part! “He doesn’t have to play the role like a Broadway wiseguy,” notes Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune , “he can play him as a risk-taking, flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kid. That feels like a pretty apt description of Radcliffe himself in his first Broadway musical. The hair-raising tour de force not only is great fun for everybody, but it also fits the themes of the piece.” So it looks as though Radcliffe, in the end, has come out ahead. Which makes this probably a good time to quit. Do say Wizard performance! Don’t say What, he isn’t naked ? The reviews reviewed Well done. Just. Daniel Radcliffe Broadway Theatre Musicals US press and publishing Leo Benedictus guardian.co.uk