The first show I went to see was 'Billy Elliot' and it was fucking phenomenal. I went to see it 6 years ago, and it was the musical that got me interested in musical theater. If it wasn't for this musical, I probably would of thought Les Misérables was a bit shit. I am not shamed in saying that I cried a lot during this musical. I'm not sure why, but recently I've become this huge cry baby, or as some might say, a pussy. The show has the same story line as the film, so if you haven't seen the film (shame on you), here is a brief plot summary. The show is about a young gay boy who's not gay, but his friend is, growing up in a mining community in the North East of England during the 1980, when good old Margaret Thatcher (sarcasm) decided to take on the miners' union, and won. Which actually had a huge impact on UK politics, society and culture. The boy's name is Billy, and he wants to be a ballet dancer, but his 'lad dad' (good phrase, isn't it?) isn't happy with this, and needs to come to terms with Billy's talent. I won't go any further as I don't want to ruin it.
The songs in the show are pretty good, but not as good as other musicals like Les Mis or Wicked. It's the plot and the visuals which stood out the most during the performance. The use of contrast in this musical is amazing, with little ballet dancers and protesting miners singing about solidarity will certainly leave you in this goosebump/sobbing state, which will stay with you for at least another week. At one point I ran to the toilet, and came back to a giant effigy of Margaret Thatcher, maybe 20 or 30 feet tall. Underneath all that was about a dozen human-sized Margaret Thatchers. I thought I fell asleep during my piss and wondered into this, what surely had to be, the worst nightmare of my life. But it wasn't. Then it sunk in. I laughed.
Before I move on to the next show, I would just like to say that Billy's grandmother is a fucking legend. Oh, and I highly recommend this show. It's probably my favourite musical that I've seen (and I've seen a fair few).
Right. Oh God. The next show I went to see was Viva Forever. Like many a child of the 90s, my awkward years of being a confused, knob-head of a child were dominated by the Spice Girls, who probably defined my ongoing love affair with pop music. I heard the reviews were mixed by the fans and negative by journalists, but I did not let this get to me. In fact I was so excited about going to see Viva Forever that I had about 6 drinks before curtain-call. I was excited, optimistic and absolutely plastered. This certainly worked to my advantage, because looking back at the show, it was pretty crap, but I had a marvelous time. Never have I ever seen a theater so full of drunk people, that got up to dance at every opportunity possible.
The plot focuses on this girl named Viva who was in a girl band that was forced to split-up during an X-Factor-like show, leaving her on her own, trying to find herself, etc, etc. You can certainly tell that the musical is written by Jennifer Saunders, with a blatant Ab Fab consciousness, and in some ways, this makes the musical a bit better. Anyway I have mixed feelings about this musical and most of them are negative, so I'm going to make a bullet pointed list of what I learnt during this
- Musicals about being famous are as ridiculous/shit as they sound.
- Props that appear from no-where and revolving things are always cool, but don't make the musical any better.
- 'Headlines' is still shit.
- 'Viva Forever' should never be tampered with, especially when it's a Spanish man with an acoustic guitar that's doing it.
- Thongs are always funny.
- 'Too Much' has always been a song about pubes after all.
