Show Reviews: Matilda

Yes, I know there have been a lot of show reviews lately, sorry.   So today I'd like to talk about Matilda, which is quite a new show.   It's based on the book by the amazing Roald Dahl, and was written by the wonderful Tim Minchin.   It was a great show!   It's about a little girl called Matilda who has horrible parents and magical powers.   She uses them to help her lovely teacher get her inheritance off her horrible aunt, who is also the headmistress.   The headmistress, Miss Trunchball, is played by a man in drag, which works really well.   The cast includes a lot of children, and they were all very impressive!   Bruce Bogtrotter especially was a great little performer.   Matilda's family were also excellent.   Really ignorant and vapid.   The sets were great as well.   Really clever with lots of bits to climb.   I have to say though that I wasn't that much of a fan of the changes Tim Minchin made to the story.  For example he made Miss Honey the teacher's parents circus performers.   I don't get it.   As for the songs, there are some great ones.   The cleverest is the song when the kids start school.   The older kids sing about what a terrible place school is, and you don't realise until the final chorus when they start using props that the entire alphabet has been incorporated into the song!   Amazing!   And I love Naughty.   It's so empowering.

Some of the best songs:

     

Book Reviews: Traction City

Traction City is a short story, written for World Book Day 2011, by Philip Reeve, one of my favorite writers.   It was published along with some short horror stories, called The Teacher's Tales of Horror, by Chris Priestley.   Philip Reeve wrote a series of books called the Mortal Engines Quartet (which is brilliant!), and this little story takes place in that universe, and uses some of the same characters.   It's about a policeman hunting a Stalker aboard the moving city of London.   A Stalker is a piece of ancient technology, a half-mechanical, half-organic warrior.   It's very well-written, and even though it's only very short it manages to be very exciting and scary.   For fans of the series it's a very interesting look at some parts of the universe that weren't explored in the books, but it works as a stand-alone story too.   The Teacher's Tales of Horror is worth a read too.   Some genuinely creepy stories.

        

Songs: Odds Are

I love the Barenaked Ladies.   I've seen them live twice and their songs are so catchy and happy with clever lyrics and some seriously impressively fast rapping.   And it turns out their new stuff is awesome too!   This is odds are.   It makes me happy.   Also, Ed is a sexy sexy man.

Show Reviews: War Horse

I've seen this play twice in the past year: once in London and once in Edinburgh.   It's based on a Michael Morpurgo book about a horse called Joey.   Joey is raised and trained by a boy called Albert who is heartbroken when his father sells Joey to the army.   Albert joins up and goes to France to try and look for Joey.   Both the horse and the boy see horrible things, but eventually, miraculously, find each other again, though both are in bad shape.   Unlike a lot of other Micahel Morpurgo stories, this one has a happy ending.   What makes the play so special is that the horses in it are portrayed by the most incredible, complex, lifelike and beautiful puppets.   They take three people to operate them, and it's so well done that you forget that you're watching puppets at all.   I really enjoyed the singing in it as well.   It was bittersweet and beautiful.   It was interesting being able to compare the two performances too.   I thought I was going to enjoy the London show a lot more than the Edinburgh one because the London theatre was so much more intimate and I was much closer to the stage, which was also bigger, but actually it travelled surprisingly well.  Recommended.

Show Reviews: Wicked

I went to see Wicked in London last year.   I think it's one of favourite musicals of all time.   It's based on the character of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, giving her a background story, and presenting her as misunderstood, not wicked.   I love the soundtrack and I listen to it all the time.   So I already knew the music when I went, and I knew the story as well, from reading the book (stupid book, don't bother).   Happily they did change bits if the book though, taking out the more gruesome parts and changing the ending so that the witch doesn't die.   Anyway, I loved the performance I saw.   The sets and costumes were gorgeous!   As for the singing, I think I prefer the recording I have with Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, but the singers in this one were still great.   I can't wait to see it again in a few months!

        

Some awesome Wicked songs:

Songs: Bubbles, The Captain

More Biffy Clyro love, coming your way!

Show Reviews: The 39 Steps

I saw this play a little while ago, and loved it!   It was so clever and funny.   It's based on the novel and Hitchcock film of the same title, about the ordinary man, who through a chance encounter, finds himself caught up in an espionage mystery.   What's so entertaining about this play is that's it's done with 4 actors, who play 130 roles between them!   The changes are very slick and well rehearsed and add to a lot of the comedy.   Without such a great cast, it would never have worked.   The sets are very simple, with the actors themselves making them convincing, for example everyone jiggling when they're sitting on benches to represent the train.   The Forth Bridge is just done with ladders and it looks great!   All in all, a very funny show, out on brilliantly, by great actors.  Well worth seeing.