All about my stumbling through life and my various projects to keep me occupied. Mostly photography orientated, but with whatever else I feel like thrown in as well.
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.
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.
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!
