Skip to main content

Review of Urinetown The Musical at the Apollo Theatre, London

While I had seen several theatre musicals this year at the local Royal & Derngate, I had yet to experience the full London effect until I settled down in my seat at the Apollo to watch Urinetown. I had grown to like musicals more this year after my first live one Blood Brothers in March and finally decided to make the effort in the big city. Also despite publicity and negative comments regarding the title Urinetown, this made it appeal to me slightly more to my bizarre mind. I am glad I did, what I witnessed was two glorious hours of fun, frolics, dark (very dark) humour, blood, dance and some singing as well. It is a musical.

On arrival in the theatre the set from Soutra Gilmour cuts an imposing, perfect dystopian figure. Tough steel work, dull and grim, perfect. Before the show begins the creepy Officer Lockstock (Jonathan Slinger) starts to prowl the stage and is soon joined by Little Sal (understudy Katie Bernstein on my evening). As the show begins these two break the fourth wall and welcome us to Urinetown, not the place very importantly, the musical. Little Sal gallops forth with hints and too quick progress of the story and Lockstock reins her in. However we are in a world where water shortage has ruled out private toilets and public amenities are the only place to go, to go, as it were.

The whole production from beginning to end for me is one of exceptional quality, filled with both funny and very high quality (and catchy) songs. The full gamut of music is on offer from fast paced songs, to ballads and a most glorious gospel song in the form of "Run, Freedom, Run". Song titles are also a fine purveyor of the darkness on offer, what other West End musical could you listen to "It's A Privilage To Pee" or "Snuff That Girl"? All songs are performed to superbly choreographed pieces by Ann Lee, with so much going on you can never see it all.

Performances from the entire company are excellent throughout. Stand outs are Matthew Seadon-Young as Bobby Strong and Simon Paisley Day as the oily Caldwell B Cladwell, while Slinger and Bernstein hold the piece neatly together with their partly narrating roles. Jenna Russell as Penelope Pennywise also steals the stage whenever she appears.

Returning to the set, I have to say that the revolving section is an inspired idea and used in incredibly inventive ways throughout the whole show. Itself offering an almost constant comedy role to the performers, that it could be a cast member. Quite superb.

For me much like The Play That Goes Wrong could be a perfect play for a reluctant theatre goer to experience, I would have no worry about recommending that this could well be the perfect first show for a reluctant musical goer as well. It shuns off all the soppy, whimsical stuff that many musicals dwell on, while also being a very good musical to boot. The title is dodgy maybe, buts it is only a title, so get over it and go and see a gloriously darkly funny comedy musical.

«««««

Performance viewed: Wednesday 19th November, 2014 at the Apollo, London.

Urinetown The Musical continues is currently booking at the Apollo Theatre, London until 10th January, 2015 but is shortly to go through several cast changes, so to see much of the original cast go soon. Also there is a lot happens high on stage, so seat recommendations from me would be further back stalls or perhaps even better in the circle for perfect viewing.
Details can be found at http://www.urinetown.co.uk/

Popular posts from this blog

Northampton Theatre Preview - September 2016

With the Summer downtime coming to an end for the theatres of Northampton, the curtain is ready to rise again on a new season of shows in the town. Top pick at Royal & Derngate has to be the return of the hit adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities. Adapted by Mike Poulton and directed by the R&D artistic directer James Dacre, this version first seen in 2014 plays for seven nights in the Royal before setting off on a national tour. Dates in Northampton are Saturday 10th to Saturday 17th with matinees on Wednesday, Thursday and the second Saturday. For those wanting to revisit the turbulant times of the 1989 political world, there is a chance to see Jonathan Maitland's touring Dead Sheep. Telling the story of the ramifications of Geoffrey Howe's sacking at the hands of PM Margaret Thatcher and her eventual downfall at the hands of this "dead sheep". It stars Steve Nallon, Paul Bradley and Graham Seed and runs at the Royal & Derngate be...

Review of Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The Rambert Dance Company is the oldest such company in Britain having first performed in 1926. However, despite this, this was my first encounter with the group in my ten years of theatre-going. Coupled with this, it was also my first encounter with Peaky Blinders , having never seen the show, and only knowing a few vague things about it. My companion for the evening however was very familiar with the show, allowing some background behind the show. It turns out though,  Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby needs a little more than a good bit of knowledge of the show, as despite this production having incredible style, there struggles to be a cohesive structure to the show and the storytelling. Much more than other dance shows as well. The first act does a whistle-stop tour of the first five seasons and while it is a feast on the eye, and on the ear, it gets extremely confusing at times. The second act is freestyle and drifts away from the stories tol...

Camden Fringe Review: FEET by Emma And Lawrence Wrote A Play at Etcetera Theatre, London

While some issue plays tend to miss the point of providing fun and entertainment as well as making their point on a relevant issue, FEET is certainly not one of them. Written, produced, directed and performed by the two-person team of Emma And Lawrence Wrote A Play, this is clearly a labour of love of the two, full names Emma Brown and Lawrence Smith, it is fun and engaging throughout. It's "issue" is loosely about selling your body for money or art and how far you might be willing to push it. Lucy Winwood (Emma Brown) is your typical young actress, struggling hard to get those money making roles, or roles in general, and in need of money she stumbles upon the world of feet fetishism (as you, of course, would) and slowly from just images of her feet sold online, it becomes feet in jelly and then finally personal meetings with clients for full on feet interaction. The path that FEET takes is that is this denigration of your body in selling your feet actually worse than...