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Showing posts with the label Simon Green

Review of Titanic The Musical at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

As the onslaught of jukebox musicals continues to hold sway on the theatre world, it always nice and bold to run with a musical now with brand new music, and to add to this, a musical based around the death of over 1500 people seems like utter madness. However, Maury Yeston (music and lyrics) and Peter Stone's (book) Titanic the Musical has proven any doubters wrong with a vastly successful run in London in 2016, following its initial launch in 1997 on Broadway (it pre-dates that famous movie by a few months), and now the musical is on a UK national tour. If you don't know the story of the Titanic, your education has failed you, however, it's safe to say that this doesn't end very well, and becomes one of the worst disasters in modern history. Stone creates from this disaster an often curiously entertaining piece, full of characters that are all interesting enough, but never so to overwhelm one another, as this is very much an ensemble piece. The only way you would...

Review of Priscilla - Queen Of The Desert at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

You watch Hairspray . You watch Last Night A DJ Saved Your Life . You watch Xanadu . You think that campometer has absolutely no other levels. Then you sit down and watch Priscilla - Queen Of The Desert and realise that you have only been watching the pretenders to the crown. Emblazoned with fifty shades of pink, the loud and proud Priscilla is like nothing else ever witnessed and to be absolutely frank, it really is quite brilliant. Following the removal of the giant lipstick prop and the rousing overture, complete with a bedazzling light display courtesy of the strategically placed glitter balls. We head straight into the buzzing musical numbers with the full company performance of Downtown. It also gives lead Duncan James (Tick/Mitzi) his first chance to get down to his pants, much to the delight of a great many of the crowd. It was clear he had been working out, quite offensively so to be honest. Getting changed on stage into one of the many and frankly ridiculous, but always ent...