NO SINKING FEELINGS HERE, GIRLFRIEND
Call it a jukebox musical in case you like, however provided that the jukebox got here alive, went rogue and began tottering across the stage on rubber ft hurling insults and doing its personal factor just like the one within the Kuttner sci-fi story which acquired modified by aliens from the longer term. Curiosity drove me into a comfortable balcony seat up towards the sound-desk (high-fives with the younger controller): as a result of its a shock revue-folk’s hit from off-Broadway, reaching London eventually by the use of Canada and Sydney.
Marla Mindella, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue initially put it collectively for a one-off snicker, engaged on the supposition that Celine Dion, whose yowling “My Heart Will Go On” is ceaselessly recognized with the 1997 movie, truly was on the true ship and has in some way lived on a century to take over from a tour information within the Titanic Museum and provides , with a spirited solid, her model of the fictional love story of Rose and Jack.
Irreverent? Actually, loads much less so than Cameron’s mawkish movie, which in romcom parasitism on tragedy casually slandered the reminiscence of at the very least two of the ship’s officers, and fiddled with even probably the most well-documented historical past (Yeston and Stone’s musical in 2016 was infinitely higher and extra respectful).
So this is a self-mocking popular culture fandom riff, camp as ninepence and homosexual as a bouncy fortress fabricated from glitterballs. It sends up not solely the overblown romanticism of the Cameron film however nearly each different star within the movie star firmament (Dua Lipa will get it very exhausting, Ed Sheeran fleetingly, Adele fairly cruelly, and nearly everybody else you possibly can consider : Beyonce, Cheryl Cole, a dozen extra you’ll acknowledge quite quicker than I did. Say solely that the iceberg, when it turns up, is performed by Layton Williams as Tina Turner in glowing iciclewear. You get the concept.
It is hosted by the exceptional Lauren Drew from Port Talbot as Celine Dion – manically hi-fiveing, a glitteringly split-skirted mic-chewing diva MC who deploys a gloriously ridiculous spoofy French-Canadian accent, a correctly beautiful singing voice, and a present for self-parodying bodily comedy which ought to make her a much bigger star than she but is.
Around her the characters of the movie enact their soupy plot – Stephen Guarino with a form of seagull hat as poor Rose’s mom stopping the present greater than as soon as (besides that hell, it by no means stops in any respect, there’s even a joke about its “two second intermission”). Between them they appear to get by a lot of the greatest and most emotional anthems of the final twenty years, clearly together with “All by myself”, whereas reproducing on a form of railed bandstand the assorted adventures of Rose and Jack (Kat Ronney and Rob Houchen, extra effective voices). There’s even Molly Brown’s maternal recommendation to Rose on love, which seems to be defined with an aubergine. Look, I feel it was an aubergine, it was the final preview and I used to be within the balcony having fun with myself.
As did the massive, rowdy, younger viewers, who as “`Celine” defined to us have been “certaiinly all gay”, and who erupted at each joke from the corny “Seaman/semen” ones to the UK-friendly references to Claire’s Accessories and TK Maxx, and Drew’s indignation at “Jane McDonald playing an ingenue at the Palladium, while I’m HERE!”
So there you might be. Midprice tickets, mine was £ 29.50 and hardly even restricted; it’s neither Ibsen nor a star star-signed crossgender Shakespeare however simply screechingly camp enjoyable. 100 stable minutes of rackety torch-songs, rejecting all seriousness with relentless, cruel gags . Perfect if you would like gig in a contented crowd: by 9.30 you’ll be clattering down the Criterion’s backstairs singing “Near, far, wherever you are” on the way in which to the pub . No dangerous technique to begin theatrecat’s new yr.
criterion-theatre.co.uk to three March
ranking 4
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