reviews
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The Siege Of Krishnapur: Gil Hates The Booker Prize Winners #6 (1973)
“The Siege Of Krishnapur”, by J. G. Farrell. I may have mentioned that I can’t get enough of novels set during the English occupation of India. Yes, even though we lost. Perhaps especially because we lost. Writers tend to use extreme cases to bring out their characters’ most secretly held views, and this is no Continue reading
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G: Gil Hates The Booker Prize Winners #5 (1972)
“G.” by John Berger. Oh thank god. This tale of a repressed young man who becomes what you might call a crap Casanova is at least interesting and has some history going on in it, specifically the whole business of Trieste getting annexed to Italy in 1921. No, shut up, it’s interesting. There’s also an Continue reading
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In A Free State: Gil Hates The Booker Prize Winners #4 (1971)
“In A Free State” by V. S. Naipaul Once again, not my kind of book. This is a long novella, two short stories, and a framing sequence, about the state of being in another country, and slowly letting go of your obligations to where you came from – being in a ‘free’ state, you see. Continue reading
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The Elected Member: Gil Hates The Booker Prize Winners #3 (1970)
“The Elected Member”, by Bernice Rubens. Well, I didn’t like this at all. We are confronted with our first family novel, and again, it’s all talk and no sense. Sigh. This is why Gil Hates Literature I will attempt to summarize. A Jewish family in the East End has a problem son, who has gone Continue reading
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On The Town (1944)
OK, things Gil didn’t know about this show: The plot is essentially that Warren G and his homie Nate Dogg are cruising for skirts in the 213, and… wait, what? Well, c’mon, this does sound a bit like “Regulate” only set in the 1940s. Anyway. OK, this is the tale of three sailors on twenty-four Continue reading
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Once More With Feeling (2001)
OK, I’m going to avoid commenting on the success of the plot aspects of this, because I haven’t watched it, and I see from Wikipedia (which is not the same as wanting to hear from anyone else, in the considerable detail I’m sure could be supplied ;-) that this episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” Continue reading
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Once On This Island (1990)
Flaherty and Ahrens are a very reliable writing team aren’t they? I haven’t heard or seen anything by them that’s been less than good. “Anastasia” is a lovely movie, “Lucky Stiff” was funny, and you can expect positive writeups for “Ragtime” and “Seussical” in the next couple of months. I like that. So what about Continue reading
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Pal Joey (1940)
Rodgers. Hart. 1940. And the first musical-theatre antihero, apparently. Based on a novel written as a series of letters from a dodgy nightclub entertainer to his friend. I knew nothing about this, but then I look at the song list. I’ve at least heard of several of the songs here, including “I Could Write A Continue reading
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Parade (1998)
My introduction to Jason Robert Brown’s songwriting: I was in the audience for the 2005 Voice Of Musical Theatre final when Tom Solomon came out and sang “Big News” as the second of his three songs, and we all stared at one another and said, “Well, fuck, he’s won, hasn’t he?” (He won. Talk about Continue reading
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Passing Strange (2006)
“I let my pain fuck my ego and I call the bastard art”… It’s difficult to tell exactly what’s going on in this one. From the songs, you can tell that a musician goes off on a journey, taking in Amsterdam, where he spends some time getting high, and he has some relationships which help Continue reading
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Phantom – The American Musical (1993)
Hmmm. OK. Regular readers will know I have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Maury Yeston musicals. They just don’t suit me, let’s put it like that. He can definitely write nice music, but I’m not convinced that he can write a gripping musical. This is his version of the Phantom Continue reading
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The Phantom Of The Opera (1986)
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom Of The Opera”. For my own benefit as much as yours, let me just recap what I’ve thought of ALW shows so far, in three words apiece. Aspects Of Love: WTF. Long. Eh.The Beautiful Game: Strained. Average. Tuneless.Bombay Dreams (he produced it): Percussion. Bollywood. Approved.By Jeeves: Wodehouse. Excellent. Surprising.Cats: WTF. Continue reading
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Pickwick (1963)
This show channels a considerable amount of English nostalgia, and comparisons with “Oliver!” are appropriate as they both source from Dickens and date from the sixties. But “Pickwick” is far more successfully defined by its title role, which in turn was defined by Harry Secombe, of The Goon Show and a subsequent metric tonnage of Continue reading
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The Pirate Queen (2007)
I refer you to the plot summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Queen – got that? OK, now I refer you to Grainne Ni Mhaille’s bio here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%A1inne_N%C3%AD_Mh%C3%A1ille – compare and contrast. Oh OK, I’ll do it for you. God, talk about rewriting history. In the show, the seafaring daughter of an Irish chieftain falls for an attractive young Continue reading
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Priscilla – Queen Of The Desert (2006)
Bah. This soundtrack is basically an album of camp classics, so you can pick your own rating for it. You all know I don’t usually care for covers of pop songs, particularly when musical theatre gets hold of them (it’s mostly down to the instrumentation) and this doesn’t really change my mind on that. I’m Continue reading
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The Producers (2001)
You probably know the plot. Fifty words or less: crap Broadway producer meets corruptible accountant, a plan is hatched to raise money for a deliberate flop, the appalling musical “Springtime For Hitler” is evolved, the audience loves it as a satire, and the producers end up in prison… doing the same thing again. Wikipedia says Continue reading
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The Pajama Game (1954)
(Pajama? Pyjama? Whatever…) This is a musical from Three Million Years BC – er, 1954. I have the 2006 revival recording with new songs. You know how I sometimes grumble about revivals over-egging the pudding by updating the orchestrations? It doesn’t happen here that I can tell. Brilliantly, this show has a female lead called Continue reading
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Rage Of The Heart(1993)
I think this came from the library. Man, they have some unexpected shit in that library. I have them to thank for “Madison Avenue” too. The tale of Abelard and Heloise is one of these great-love-tragedy things which we’re all supposed to know about but of which I know nothing beyond their names and the Continue reading
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Ragtime (1996)
See also Ragtime: The Concept Album. This show surely wins a Nobel Prize for Effort: it features thirty-eight tracks covering two hours of music, let alone the script time. “Ragtime” is based on the novel by E.L.Doctorow, and has a book by Terrence McNally who has written tons of plays and musicals. The music and Continue reading
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Ragtime: The Concept Album (1996)
See also the full review of Ragtime. In 1996 they put out a concept album of 21 tracks from Ragtime, which is a fairly hefty number, but, as we know from yesterday, only just over half the numbers on the full cast recording. The album doesn’t stint on the production or singing quality; concept albums, Continue reading
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Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Every so often I’m privileged (I believe that’s the word) to listen to something like this, and a healthy combination of enthusiasm and WTF stylings leads me to appreciate it against my better judgement. I don’t know that this is necessarily a recommendation, but it wasn’t dull… How to describe this? It’s a sung-through sci-fi Continue reading
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Ring Of Fire (2006)
This is a jukebox musical featuring songs by Johnny Cash. (And possibly others – Windows Media Player kept giving me composer information about some of the songs, like I would know. I’m not at all an expert on country music, not even a novice… I just tend to avoid it on uninformed principle. After all, Continue reading
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Saturday Night (1955)
This was Sondheim’s first music-and-lyrics show that was intended to be performed (as opposed to the four assignments he got from his mentor Oscar Hammerstein). But unfortunately, 1954 was a bad year for producers dying, and so this show only came to life over forty years later in concert performances. It often sounds old. In Continue reading
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Seussical (2000)
So, Ahrens and Flaherty are back at GHM to work their magic. “Seussical” is their musical from 2000 based on the work of Dr. Seuss… you know who that is, right? If not, you are the living definition of Late To The Party; go discover him right now, no matter how old you are, and Continue reading
Gil Hates Everything 