theatre
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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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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