Fed up with this crap weather, I decided this week that I needed to watch some people in legwarmers to remind me of the 1980s - when summer was summer, and the sun could be guaranteed to shine for more than 10 minutes at a time. The holidays were endless, ice creams tasted of fake vanilla, and no-one had heard of Big Brother. You get the picture.
So off I trogged to the Theatre Royal, to see Fame the Musical, assuming I'd get my fill of 1980s nostalgia...only to discover they've gone and updated things without telling anyone. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you wouldn't think you'd need to check beforehand whether something called Fame the Musical actually bore any resemblance to Fame the film (not to mention the tv series). But it's horrendous...Fame lite, if you like, with a renamed cast, a poor attempt at a storyline (it plays like a series of sketches, so you never really get to interact with the characters) and none of the songs. Apart from Fame, obviously, which the cast managed to murder twice.
The dancing wasn't bad, and the singing ok (Abi Finley, one of the Marias, was fantastic), but the orchestral arrangement was horrible (plinky-plonk), and everything was fantastically overamplified. I know I'm going to sound like I'm 30-something going on 85, but I'd still like to be able to hear by the end of an evening out.
So not a success, then. Don't think I'll be going all the way down south to watch H from Steps 'star' in the London production, somehow.
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