The Sound Of Music...

Generally I hate musicals. Just the opening strains of most trite West End vehicles can give me a sudden urge to find and skull-fuck the creative teams responsible. And don’t even get me started on any musical penned by Ben Elton... The best case scenario here is that he’s a snuff movie waiting to happen.

Sometimes, though, an odd musical will get under the wire. Cabaret remains fabulous because of its mix of political comment and sleazy decadence and West Wide Story is very classy and makes me halt all my critical faculties. But the rest of them. No thanks...

So seeing two musicals in just over a week to celebrate the birthday of the missus could have been a bit of a test but it was not a wholly horrible experience.

Sadly Guys And Dolls was pretty rubbish. It’s currently playing in the Piccadilly Theatre after a transfer from the Donmar Warehouse. It stars Ewan McGregor and he’s sort of OK in very little charisma sort of way. The two lead girls (Jane Krakowski and Jenna Russell) are excellent and a few of the musical numbers (Luck Be A Lady Tonight and Rockin’ The Boat) are pretty good but that’s sort of it.

You can pretty much see how a show which had been ripped out of an intimate stage at the Donmar and probably worked really well there just hadn’t been significantly changed enough when it was slung into a huge aircraft hangar of a West End theatre. It just didn’t fill the space. It was a bit pedestrian pace-wise, too, and not the most energetic show I’ve ever seen. It was also bloody expensive and I frankly expect a bit more for my cash. But I guess hiring Jedis doesn't come cheap.

The Big Life, however, was utterly fabulous. This new ska musical was real high energy and featured a cast who actually seemed really pleased to be there. The show is a love story about four couples from the first wave of West Indian immigrants who came over on the Windrush and it happily mixes slapstick, rollicking musical numbers and a bit of social commentary. This was transfered from the Theatre Royal Stratford and it’s a great example of a community show that was created for the area’s largely black population and has a life outside its original genesis.

If Guys And Dolls had half of the energy of The Big Life then it may well have been a very different experience. Sadly it didn’t and it was pretty poor because of it.

Stratford East 1 Big Name West End Tourist Tat 0...