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Album Review: 9 to 5 (2009 Original Broadway Cast Recording)

“You got dreams he’ll never take away”

Upstairs at the Gatehouse will soon be hosting the London fringe premiere of 9 to 5 and with a neat serendipity, Megan Hilty is coming over to the UK for a short run of shows at the Hippodrome in September, Hilty having played Doralee – the role made famous by Dolly Parton – in the 2009 Broadway production. Plus, Alison Janney was in the cast too, so how could you not want to fill your life with her would-be future-Dameness via the Original Broadway Cast Recording.

An adaptation of the film by Patricia Resnick from her own screenplay, Dolly Parton’s score combined original songs with a smattering of tracks from her extensive back catalogue. But where, say, Cyndi Lauper managed to adapt her song-writing to the world of musical theatre in Kinky Boots whilst maintaining much of her character, Parton loses a little something in her journey. The songs here are perfectly serviceable but ultimately quite bland, especially shorn of any visuals. Continue reading “Album Review: 9 to 5 (2009 Original Broadway Cast Recording)”

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Album Review: Kinky Boots (Original Broadway Cast Recording 2013)

“Charlie from Northampton, meet Simon from Clapton”

There is something undoubtedly ironic about a show set in Northampton opening on Broadway before it took its bow on the West End but such it was for Kinky Boots, birthed on the Great White Way with a book by Harvey Fierstein and a Tony-winning score from Cyndi Lauper. And it was that cast that got to release their album first, unleashing Lauper’s joyous songs onto the public.

Unfortunately, they also unleashed some atrocious accents onto us as well. They may have passed a more forgiving (or unaware) US public but to British ears, there’s no hiding from how awkward it sounds at so many points across the disc. Especially now that we have a West End recording available, I’d struggle to recommend this version for any real reason. Continue reading “Album Review: Kinky Boots (Original Broadway Cast Recording 2013)”

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Album Review: Frozen (soundtrack)

 

“It’s time to see what I can do”

Disney’s Frozen is as close to a stone-cold classic as they’ve produced in many a year, a loose retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen with a delightfully forward-thinking approach to gender roles and adorned with a cracking score by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. This last fact means it is as well-conceived a musical as one could hope for, something confirmed by the Oscar nomination for Best Song received by its lead song ‘Let It Go’, and the Broadway production that has now been confirmed to be under discussion.

Its theatrical credentials are further confirmed by the voice cast that was assembled for the film, erring to Broadway performers rather than established film stars and creating a wonderful mix that nails the quirky characterisations of the film. So Idina Menzel takes on the fierce Elsa, emotionally intense due to her enforced solitude but breaking free in the most glorious of ways as she finally embraces her powers in the epic number that is ‘Let It Go’, an instant classic that has me delivering all kinds of armography whenever it plays on the stereo. Continue reading “Album Review: Frozen (soundtrack)”

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Review: Silence! The Musical, Above the Stag

“I’ll throw her in a well so that no-one can find her,
I’ll tuck my dick between my legs and call it a vagina”

Silence! The Musical is described as ‘the unauthorised parody of The Silence of the Lambs‘ and grew from a collection of songs posted on the internet into an off-Broadway show in 2005. It had a two week run in Baron’s Court last year, but this version at the Above the Stag theatre above a Victoria gay bar is billed as the European professional premiere: it has added new material getting its first airing and retains the original director from New York, Christopher Gatelli.

It does what is says on the tin, it’s a relatively faithful rerun of the events of the film where trainee FBI agent Clarice Starling is pressed into interviewing notorious psychiatrist and serial killer Hannibal Lecter in prison in order to help catch another serial killer Buffalo Bill. However, it is mercilessly and hilariously parodied throughout with a book by Hunter Bell and music and lyrics by Jon & Al Kaplan and a chorus of singing and dancing lambs. Continue reading “Review: Silence! The Musical, Above the Stag”