reviews
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She Loves Me (1963)
Ah, the travails of shop salesfolk who unknowingly fall in love with one another’s correspondence while not getting on with one another in person. This is a popular Hungarian play which has been adapted for James Stewart and Tom Hanks amongst others. This musical dates from 1963 and was popular at the time, and when… Continue reading
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Shenandoah (1975)
1975 is about the back end of what I consider acceptable for the age of a musical these days (it used to be 1970) – so it’s lucky that 1975’s “Shenandoah” (music by Gary Geld, lyrics by Peter Udell, book by them and James Lee Barrett who wrote the screenplay for the James Stewart movie… Continue reading
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Sherlock Holmes (1988)
h god, I oughtn’t to like this… This is by Leslie Bricusse, who brought us “Pickwick”, “Stop The World – I Want To Get Off” (I strongly anti-recommend that show), songs from “Doctor Doolittle” (which are awesome btw, you totally need to watch that film if you haven’t seen it), and lyrics for hire, including… Continue reading
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Shout! The Mod Musical (2000)
Postponed from last week, here’s what I think of this jukebox musical, which no doubt asserts that captures the spirit of the Swinging Sixties in London, England, with a cast of five Mod girls – “mod” = “modern”, in case you’re not enough of a face or a high number to know this – who… Continue reading
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Simply Heavenly (1957)
OK, so as you can see from the above, this was written by Langston Hughes (an actual poet, it’s based on his own work) with music by David Martin. It had a brief but successful run in New York in 1957 but flopped in London, and was revived in the “off-West End” in 2003. I… Continue reading
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Singin’ In The Rain (1983)
Hmmm. A prime example of how casual shoppers (or in my case, completist library browsers) can end up with a sub-par product: it turns out that VPL and therefore now I have the 1984 London cast recording of this show, which is short (13 tracks including the overture) and which for no obvious reason includes… Continue reading
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Some Like It Hot / Sugar (1972)
So yeah, this was turned into a musical in 1972 but its name was changed to “Sugar”. And now I’ve listened to the 1992 West End revival, where they changed the name back. Did I tell you I don’t like Tommy Steele? He’s in… this too. The songs are by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill.… Continue reading
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Songs For A New World (1995)
You ought to know Jason Robert Brown’s name by now; his major shows include this, “Parade”, “The Last 5 Years”, and “13”, and he’s also banged out a very good solo album, “Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes”. He’s been called the new Sondheim, and certainly Sarah grimaces in pretty much the same way when someone shows… Continue reading
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Songs From An Unmade Bed (2005)
This show is short – I like that – and a revue – I usually like that – and features one singer singing eighteen songs with lyrics by one guy, Mark Campbell, and music by eighteen different composers – which is interesting. The result is eighteen vignettes of single gay life in New York –… Continue reading
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The Sound Of Music (1959)
1949 autobiography, 1956 Austrian movie, 1959 musical, 1965 musical movie, endless revivals since then, and right now, a 40th Anniversary two-CD soundtrack edition with bonus versions of all the songs. Argh. The plot: an Austrian governess is dispatched from the convent where she was confusing all the nuns to take care of the seven children… Continue reading
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South Pacific (1949)
The perils of movie soundtracks… My head has just been compressed to the approximate size of a walnut by the singing voice of Giorgio Tozzi, the Met opera star who sang for the character of Emile. If you’ve never heard an opera star singing “Some Enchanted Evening”, with full dynamic range and directly into both… Continue reading
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Spring Awakening (2006)
Hmmmm. (And avid readers will know what “Hmmmm” encodes ;-) This is based on an 1891 German play which was banned for a century because it was basically about teenagers coming of age and doing a whole bunch of cumming in the process. What could make it interesting, and presumably made it very popular –… Continue reading
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Starlight Express (1984)
I honestly didn’t expect this to be a show featuring plainly gay trains. My sister often remarks, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, said the trucks.” I’m not sure she’s ever seen this, but it could easily be a (short) review. The strangest thing about this show is the complete clash of tone between the… Continue reading
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Summer Of ’42 (2001)
I really ought not to have liked this show, for the following reasons: And yet. I think that this is actually a very sweet and in-its-way-hypnotic show. My emotion warning sensor went off fairly early on, registering the slow pace and slice-of-life approach as the calm – the very, very long calm – before the… Continue reading
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Sunday in the Park with George (1984)
Blimey. OK, GHM attempts to step up to the plate for this one… This is Sondheim’s 1984 collaboration with James Lapine. The first act is about Georges Seurat in 1884 painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” – i.e. this – http://www.fabulousmasterpieces.co.uk/userimages/seurat.JPG. The second act is set in 1984 and shows… Continue reading
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Sunset Boulevard (1991)
Andrew Lloyd Webber, never one to shy from a challenge, here takes on the task of musicalising the famous and critically-acclaimed 1950 Billy Wilder movie – the one which equally famously starts with a voiceover nominally spoken by that guy floating face-down in the pool. The story is of a wealthy but ghastly former silent-movie… Continue reading
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Troubles: Gil Hates The Booker Prize Winners #2 (1969)
“Troubles” by J. G. Farrell. (Sarah suggested I give this series of reviews this time-honoured title, and why not indeed.) This book won the ‘lost’ 1970 Booker Prize – a change in the rules meant some books had missed out on the competition, so in 2010 they did a retrospective thing and chose this one.… Continue reading
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Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (1979)
So in contrast to “Sunset Boulevard”, which probably thought it was tackling some heavyweight nasty characters, here’s what happens when Stephen Sondheim puts his talents to use in service of a strong thriller plot. Of course, being Sondheim, it’s not that simple, but happily the complex aspects are all positive ones. GHM is going to… Continue reading
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Sweet Charity (1966)
A short and sweet review, this one. The show description doesn’t sound very interesting, and from the soundtrack this doesn’t sound like it’s greatly special; it generated a few hits, including “If My Friends Could See Me Now”, “Big Spender” and “Rhythm Of Life”, but my pick from the soundtrack is “My Personal Property”. Warning:… Continue reading
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Swing! (1999)
Description here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing! I’m mildly offended that this received nominations for Best Musical. I know this is slightly like arguing for subgenres and classification, because that works so well when you’re trying to find what you’re looking for, and I also suppose that if you were real good at keeping a straight face, you could… Continue reading
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Tarzan – The Musical (2006)
Here at Gil Hates Musicals, we (er, I) are… am… anyway, GHM rarely shies away from controversy. But usually that’s because it’s fun annoying people by saying “Your favourite old / venerated musical is, in fact, horrible tacky outdated crap”. On the occasions where I boost a show, either it doesn’t come as a surprise,… Continue reading
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Tell Me On A Sunday (1977)
Wow, this was disappointing, and it’s all in the execution, because this – read the extremely interesting backstory here on Wikipedia – is a very good concept for a show. There’s a great story to be told about a transatlantic relocation, of moving to a new world, and finding how that new world treats you,… Continue reading
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Thoroughly Modern Millie (2000)
This is a strange show. Based on a 1967 movie telling a pastiche 20s story and featuring period songs, it was turned into a stage musical in 2000 (with original music by Jeanine Tesori, who later brought you the “Shrek!” musical). It features some pretty good Ira Gershwin-style comedy lyrics, one complete steal from Gilbert… Continue reading
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The 3 Musketeers (2010)
(its official title appears to use the digit… not sure I like that) Sometimes you just cringe, don’t you? You hear of an adaptation from one form to another of something you like, and you think “Oh god, please, no”, or sometimes you advance straight to “Just don’t fuck it up”, or you can’t stand… Continue reading
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The Threepenny Opera (1928)
Laurie Anderson has a song called “Difficult Listening Hour”. That phrase kept surfacing in my mind like a bad (three)penny while I was listening to this. This show dates from 1928 and was written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, lifting the plot from an 18th century English show called “The Beggar’s Opera”. It’s about… Continue reading
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