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- [00:00]
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- [00:57]
Mickey Jo
Show a little more, show a little less. Fire the original creative team and rework the material so it's almost no longer recognizable welcome to Burlesque. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you're listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre and today I am going to be letting you know. Drumroll please what I thought of the West End opening of Burlesque, the musical adaptation of the film starring Christina Aguilera, who is also a producer on on the stage adaptation, and Cher, who seemingly wants nothing to do with it whatsoever. But that is a different conversation for another time, one which I dipped my toe into a little bit around 24 hours ago when I shared an update about the alleged backstage drama taking place around this production and the conversation which it has found itself embroiled in for some weeks now. And relevant and fascinating as I think all of that is, that is not what I'm going to be discussing today. If you want to know about what may or may not be going on behind the scenes at Burlesque, you can go and check out the video or podcast that I shared yesterday. Today it's time for my review. I saw the press night performance earlier this evening. What did I actually think of it? And on this particular occasion, because right now it's just after midnight and a handful of other reviews have already begun to drop. I am so fascinated, even more so than usual, to know what you thought of this show if you have had the chance to see it already. Did you see it in Manchester in what was, I gather, a very different version with an entirely different creative team and many different principal cast members. Have you seen it already in London? What do you think of the show? What star rating would you give it if you were giving it a full review? In the meantime, I'm very excited to share my thoughts with you and if you enjoy listening to them and you want to know my thoughts about other upcoming West End and Broadway shows, make sure you're subscribed right here on YouTube. You can go and check out many previous reviews that I have here. You can turn on notifications so YouTube lets you know every time I share a new one. Or you can follow me on podcast platforms where I share almost exactly the same content but without the snazzy jackets. For those of you just listening to me today, it's a really wild silver leopard print number, almost too loud even for burlesque. But I ask you, when am I going to get the chance to wear something like this? Certainly not to Les Mis. Anyway, all that being said, earlier this evening I walked down the pink carpet at the Savoy Theatre and the company proceeded to show me how they burlesque. Let me tell you what I found out. So Burlesque is the highly anticipated stage adaptation of the film of the same name, which was written and directed by Stephen Antin, who has also adapted his own screenplay for this production as serving as one of the show's producers. And ordinarily that is something that I consider to be a little bit of a red flag in the world of musical theater. And right now in particular, you know, this is one of a whole handful of screen to stage musical adaptations that we have seen. Clueless, currently running in the West End, although set to close later this summer, the Devil Wears Prada, Mean Girls was just here. Back to the Future continuing to play Moulin Rouge, continuing to play Death becomes Her doing very well on Broadway, possibly transferring over the Atlantic. Mrs. Doubtfire not too long ago at the Shafts for a Muriel's Wedding not too long ago at Leicester Curve. The list objectively goes on and on and on. And if there's one thing that British and West End theatre audiences seem to really enjoy, it's one of their favourite musicals suddenly realised on stage. And as I was saying, the red flag when it's the same person adapting the screenplay for the stage for me is usually that they don't change enough, or that they don't have the requisite insight into the differences in how you can write for this very different medium. This may even go the other way because this change a really surprising amount, an astonishing amount. And if you are potentially going to see this, if you're thinking about buying tickets as a burlesque purist, that feels like Something I need to make you aware of. Right up top. The biggest change, and this is obviously going to be a spoiler for the show, admittedly one that is revealed very early on, is that the key relationship at the heart of the thing between the Ally character played on screen by Christina Aguilera and the Tess character played on screen by the one and only Cher, is now quite different in the film. It was a sort of a surrogate mother daughter thing. She didn't want her to perform at the club. She wasn't interested. And then she overheard her singing in that Christina Aguilera way that she does, and she was like, how come you didn't tell me you could sing like this? And then she auditions and all of this happens and they come to understand each other a little better. It's very. If you think about it, Dolores and Mother Superior in Sister act, this surrogate mother daughter thing that they have going on in the film becomes more literal on stage. Because the whole reason in this version that Ali goes to New York, goes to the club and seeks Tess out in the first place is because it's been revealed to her, unbeknownst to Tess, that she is in fact her long lost mother. This very shortly after the death of the woman who Ali believed to be her mother, who has been raising her for all of these years, which it's worth noting. She does not take almost any time to grieve throughout this show. I mean, she's too excited to be becoming a burlesque performer, which I'm sure is everything that her late adoptive mother wanted for her in life. Raising her in a religious community in Iowa. That's another new element of her backstory as well. We meet her having a bit of a Sister Mary Robert moment, riffing and singing too loudly in a church choir, and, you know, clearly having far too much talent that needed somewhere to go. She needed to be able to express herself. And burlesque happens to be the answer, because as we all know, when your vocals are too prevalent for the gospel choir that you're a part of, you obviously turn to burlesque. Anyway, Ali arrives in New York, and due to Tess's indifference and disinterest in having a conversation with this random girl who turned up and then accidentally stained a garment backstage, she doesn't get the chance to tell her that she believes that she is her daughter, even though she's wearing around her neck a key on a chain that Tess Nose that she gave to her daughter. We're not going to worry too much about that. There's also a letter that she has written at some point ahead of time that Tess hasn't opened. And this in navigable junction of conversation continues for quite a long time until we reach a point where Ally simply stops trying to tell Tess who she is, even though they have grown closer at the club. Because just like in the movie, Ally eventually becomes a performer when they find out just how talented she is. Now, here is another big difference, because in the film, Cher's character, character Tess, is the only one who actually sings at the club. And everyone else is lip syncing to pre recorded vocals, not their own. But Christina's character obviously has this huge voice. And that is a big point of insecurity for the other performers, particularly the headliner Nikki, who doesn't have a great attitude to work in the show. Meanwhile, their paradigm is pretty similar. But nobody is lip syncing. Everyone is a fully singing burlesque performer. In fact, there's one who has an operatic background and sings in that kind of a style. Given that this is a musical theater interpretation of the show, that kind of makes sense. And you could still do something with lip syncing, but it would be a little bit dubious that would. It would be a challenge to try and recreate something like that on stage and explain it and put it across without just limiting how many of your characters actually get to sing in this musical. Speaking of which, let's talk about the songs now. Many of those that you may know and love from the film are retained for this. Some of them are reworked. There was a whole lot of hoopla about the possibility of the Diane Warren written song, you haven't seen the Last of Me, of course, also included in the musical, the Cher show being removed from this production, and I believe it was in early previews, perhaps begrudgingly, and after she shared some thoughts about this in no uncertain terms on social media, the song is now back in the show. And the new song, I think it was called Masterpiece, which had replaced it, which contained the lyric, you haven't seen the last of me, but was a very different song, which Orfeh performed a few weekends back at West End Live, that is now gone. And instead she sings, you haven't seen the last of me in the first act for perhaps a minute and a half. It is a very reduced cut of the song. We don't have the whole introductory verse. I don't actually think we have either of the verses. It just begins with, I've been brought down to my knees. And then we get as far as the end of the chorus. And then we get a moment into a key change and a big resplendent ending and or face. Sounds fantastic, but it is a little bit like showing up at a fancy restaurant and just being served dessert when you were kind of expecting the opportunity to also have a main course, a starter even, dare I say, but really, at the very least something savory before someone just shoves a piece of cheesecake in my face. And it has been a very long time since I saw the film upon which this is based. But I did recognize a great many of the songs, particularly the Christina Aguilera song numbers. And Jess Foley, who, interestingly, was originally brought into the show as a young songwriter and then subsequently took on the role of Ali Rose, sings them phenomenally. And that is not an easy vocal to put across. That is not an easy artist to emulate. And it's not just that she's doing a Christina impression. She sounds unmistakably unique and like herself when she's singing her own song that she has written for the score, a sort of I want song that appears early in the first act called Got It all from youm. As she's singing about her own personality and theorizing about the relationship she could have with her mother, Tess, on her way to go and meet her, traveling to New York. Incidentally, also the only song of Jess's composition to be left in the score. I think there were more that have been removed. But it's when she does the Christina riffs and runs that she sounds very much like her. She very much lives up to the audacious expectations that come with that vocal performance. I mean, how many people can convincingly do Christina Aguilera on stage? Not many. At which point I feel we should also acknowledge how well cast Orfeh is as Cher. Now, this is a big casting pivot from the regional premiere production in which Jackie Burns was playing the role, possibly aged down a little bit from the film because they now have the real life mother daughter of it all all. And Tess talks about having had Ali, her daughter, at a very young age, an age at which she was not yet ready to be a mother. And now that Orfeh is playing the role, it feels like that pendulum has swung back in a very share direction. You can feel the share influence in Orfeh as an artist. It feels like a little bit of a tribute, but she is another one who is unmistakably original. And if you know Orfeh's work, she's a little bit of a theatrical Legend having starred in Saturday Night Fever on Broadway, as well as Legally Blonde, Tony Award nominated for her performance as the original Paulette in Legally Blonde. Also having appeared in Pretty Woman, all of them, it's worth pointing out musical adaptations of films, then you may be familiar with her theatrical legacy as something of a musical theater heavyweight. And if you're a big fan of hers, this is one of those great moments when you can go and really bask in that. Because she's giving a very Orfeh esque performance on stage. We'll talk more about it later on. But she's very well cast here and she sounds fantastic in what brief vocal moments she has. And this is worth talking about, I think, as we address the changes to the narrative. Because not that I think Cher had that many moments in the film, but even just. It seems like a small and trivial thing, even just in having that moment with you haven't seen the Last of me because it's so. Aside from the quality of the rest of the songs in the film soundtrack, it was such a standalone breakthrough moment that afforded her just for those few minutes as we sit still and focus on it, as she sings this powerful emotional ballad that bizarrely, was a rehearsal for the next night at the club and was, you know, was never going to play well to that burlesque audience that afforded her a great amount of dramatic thrust. And she loses that thrust in the stage production, both because that moment is diminished. And we cut away from her so often and she feels a little bit sidelined on stage, both in the way it's written and in the way it's directed, but also because her introduction, the first moment in which we meet her is not particularly impactful. So often I go and see shows and the first number happens and I'm like, that was a decent opening number. And then the opening of Act 2 happens and I'm like, wow, that just punched me in the face. And I always think that was the energy we needed at the start of Act 1. Sometimes I think that literally should have been the opening to Act 1. And I think it's an overcorrection sometimes because Act 2 openings are so hard to write. And they know they need to recapture that audience energy after a break. And it's such a dynamic and explosive act two opening. And the one in the first act isn't necessarily. And I think that hurts our relationship to Tess as played by Orfeh. I want her to feel like the central queen. I want her to feel like the real leader of this club, like it all falls to her. And because Todrick hall is playing Sean, the Stanley Tucci role from the film, as well as directing, choreographing, and having co composed much of the score, including the vast majority of songs which have remained in the score. Also emceeing and introducing the whole show to the audience, and playing a couple of other characters, including Ms. Loretta, who is the choir leader at Ali's church back in Iowa. He feels very much like the leader of the burlesque club, even though he isn't. He sort of becomes the MC from Cabaret Esque. He also fronts a huge production number telling Ali about the history of burlesque and putting that all across. And because we only experience Tess in moments of financial challenge and criticizing her staff, and we never see her like teaching choreography or, you know, engaging with them in the same way that he does and really helping them fix problems, she's only ever running around being like, the show's happening. Where's Nikki? Who's done this? I have to pay these bills. Why is my ex husband here? Stop bartending with your clothes on, etc. Etc. She sort of just feels like a stressful HR representative or that person in a restaurant that tries to come in and run everything when they really have no idea what's happening because they're not the usual manager. And I don't think that's how we want the character of Tess to feel. Now, speaking of semi clothed bartenders, we should also talk about Jackson, who is the love interest for Ally. He is retained entirely from the film. They even recreate the cookie box moment in which he's not wearing anything, but he's holding a box of cookies in. In a very specific location. I don't know that that really adds anything. And I also don't know that it's an iconic enough moment that they felt like they had to keep that in. And there's like sensual enough and charming enough moments between the two of them. We've already bought into their relationship at this point. The chemistry between them is really good and some of the writing between them is very charming. I just don't think we need the cookie box moment. And it comes after an extended romantic duet that turns into a burlesque fantasy dream sequence number and goes back into duet between the two of them. And then we have what we feel like is going to be a blackout conclusion to the scene. But they stay there, start singing another song, and then he disappears to go and take all his clothes off and re enter with a box of cookies in front of a private location. I just think it's a strange choice. And listen, if we really need to trim minutes from what was a three hour running time during previews, cut that instead of the verse of youf Haven't Seen the Last of Me. Like, there are clear preferences here in terms of what is actually more important to the show. Now, I mentioned that Todrick had written a great many new songs for the show. Many of these are burlesque production numbers within the club. There is something of a plot line about the nature of these performances changing once Ali replaces Nikki as the headliner and Ally brings with her new ideas. Despite having not really known anything about burlesque and possibly about performing arts outside of the context of a church choir whatsoever, she somehow revolutionizes the way that they are doing burlesque, which was already, admittedly pretty trendy. And the costuming doesn't change all that much. There's something about really, it's the lighting, I think, that changes more so than anything else to indicate that they've now updated the way that they do burlesque in the club. But this is where it starts to once again feel a little bit Sister X to me. Because she comes in and she's like, there aren't enough people here. We're going to get more people into this club by doing things in this new way. And Tess is the Mother Superior character who is resistant to change. But everyone falls in love with Ally, and Tess ultimately gives in to that. And what the heart of this story probably, probably ought to be compounded by the actual mother daughter relationship of it all is the coming together of these two women. We don't really feel that here. It's almost as though in all of this adaptation and the changing creative team and all of these tweaks to the material, they perhaps haven't had the conversation of what is actually the important, enduring message of this show. What was the enduring message of this film? And I think the best answer to this might be something about chosen family and kind coming together and this space that was culturally important, but more so was important to all of them as artists and as this sort of chosen family. And we don't get a strong enough sense of that in the musical, sadly. And that is because the whole thing does sort of lack an element of substance. Don't get me wrong, it is stylish as all hell, but as glittable manufacturers have known for years, there's no point making the exterior as shiny as you can if it doesn't have a robust shape. And to circle way back to my original point, which I have long since lost sight of. It is puzzling that this is the writer of the original screenplay adapting his own work. And it feels so estranged from the tonal quality of the original. It feels a lot more glitzy and a lot more sort of squeaky clean and, you know, played for laughs as well as evading any sense of conveying any kind of a decent emotional message. And I appreciate this does not need to be an intellectual, hard hitting or meaning show like the original film I don't think is an enduring cinematic classic. I enjoy it a lot. Don't Hate me. But I always thought that it was, and this is said with kindness. Slightly trashy, slightly campy, but very fun. And those are also qualities with which I can describe this production. And don't get me wrong, the show has already sold well and my expectation is that over the course of the summer audiences are going to be coming to see this at the Savoy and having a fantastic time. I think people are really going to enjoy this for what it is. Let me tell you a little bit more about why. So as of right now, I have no idea what it says in the title of the video or the podcast episode that you're watching because I haven't fully settled on a star rating yet. I'm at war with myself about this one because there are objective shortcomings in the material and yet the entertainment factor is so spectacularly high when it all works. And the difference between something like this and A Devil Wears Prada or A Doubtfire or a Clueless or A Pretty Woman, which I would characterize as other fairly generic film to stage adaptations, and I've said as much when I've reviewed those shows before, is that this one has a more obvious predisposition to musical theatre performance. Devil Wears Prada has a sensibility where it is standing still and posing and glueless. Yes, it's like fun high school party scenes, but burlesque has the opportunity repeatedly and often to put across these huge, satisfying, crowd pleasing, high energy musical numbers full of choreography. And that is always a very winning thing to be able to deliver. And it is packaged and delivered extraordinarily well. This is where director Todrick hall really comes into his own, I should say director and choreographer and co star and co writer Todrick Hall. And to talk a little bit about his overall contributions to the show as a creative, I do think that it feels familiar of Jerry Mitchell direction, especially Jerry's last few stage projects with Boop and Prada And Pretty Woman and it's light hearted and it's entertainment focused and it is characterful. But the principal focus does seem to be really nailing these huge moments of vocals and choreography with eye catching costumes worn by an eye catching ensemble of really sensational dancers, which I would love to say is representative of diverse body types. But it feels more like there is some very limited tokenistic representation. And not as far as the male ensemble goes. But we get full out production numbers which do evolve a little bit as Ali joins the club and the nature of them does shift a little bit. We also get a really spectacular sequence, probably the strongest moment in the show as far as the musical numbers go, in which Todrick joined by the dancers at the club, Club teaches Ali about the history of burlesque and the thrill of burlesque. This is a really fantastic moment. And in order to keep the whole thing moving, we also see a handful of little snippets, short performances, little pastiche burlesque musical numbers performed by the various different characters at the club. And I like that we get a chance to meet so many of these and that they have their own distinct personalities. What I will say is that even in these moments, but particularly in the longer extended production number with Ali fronting them or with Todrick fronting them, it doesn't really feel like burlesque. And that's because it isn't really burlesque. It's the musical theatre interpretation of burlesque, queer pop music with contemporary queer choreography and they are wearing suggestive outfits and there's corseting, but it doesn't really feel true to the nature of what burlesque is. Even though the aesthetic looks right, it's more like it's just Moulin Rouge basically, with a little bit less red involved. Except. Except for one moment when Jake Dupri takes to the stage. This is also a defining moment of the show's entertainment factor. Now, Jake is an established cabaret and burlesque performer. In fact, they were the first non binary performer to perform at the iconic venue Crazy Horse. And they play a non binary character in the show who is initially introduced to us as Trey and later announces that they are now going by the name of Chardonnay. And there's a little bit of friction with Tess about the outfits that they want to wear and the dressing room that they want to use, which gets resolved calmly enough. And it's not particularly robust queer representation, if we're being honest. It's about as substantial as the character of Baby Doll in Moulin Rouge, I'd say it's almost exactly the same. But what we do get is this glorious burlesque solo from Jake in the second act, which is acrobatic and has striptease elements. But it incites the audience to such a thrilling degree because it has this winking, knowing quality of conversation with the audience that the rest of the burlesque numbers don't. They are, you know, explosive, and there is flipping choreography and the costumes are gorgeous and the vocals are great, but it is just musical theatre. It doesn't feel like burlesque. This moment feels like burlesque. And it's a little surprised that it's from an established burlesque performer, but little details, I think would go a long way in terms of. Of changing this. And, you know, we don't get a lot of. And I know that burlesque is bigger than just striptease, but we get really very little removing of any articles of clothing. There's one number that toys with this at the very beginning, but it's just like one reveal and then it doesn't go particularly much further. There are characters of twins who do a number with a martini glass. And there is, of course, the iconic Dita Von Teese routine, which has been repeated by many other performers, in which the performer is in a giant cocktail glass and they have a giant cocktail glass behind them, but they just sing about martinis and they don't at any point get into or out of the glass. And at that point, if they're not going to use the glass, then it just feels like an unrealistically large and expensive prop for them to have backstage and wheel out on stage just so they can stand in front of it. I don't know that the audience at the burlesque club club really gain much from just seeing a big cocktail glass behind them as they sing suggestively about being a martini. It is just now occurring to me that this was meant to be the section of the review in which I defend the show's strengths. And, you know, I. I can only say it so many times. It is hugely entertaining when they deliver these numbers, and it creates an organic standing ovation. You want to stand at the end of the. Because particularly the final number is so explosive. It is so talent filled and the dance is fantastic. The cast are extraordinarily talented. It all looks stylish enough. I like the set design from Nate Bertone, who I think is a really fantastic set designer and who has done very interesting things with the proscenium here. And these sort of opera boxes that move in and out and there is a scree in the background and there are some set pieces that come up and down. It's not the world's most complicated set, but it does. Does sort of as much as it needs to. And these costumes from Marco Marco. I know tonight may have been the first time that some of these costumes were actually seen by a paying audience, and there's been something of a hoopla to have them ready in time, but I thought the costumes were all really great. I would like for there to have been more of a sense of evolution from the first act to the second. It would have been more interesting, especially in music as well, for there to be more distinction between the traditional world of burlesque that they were emulating setting and the updated version. I compared this to Sister act and Dolores coming in and changing the way that things were done. And for that to happen, you really need to feel the difference between the choir before and after Dolores. And I think it would be great for that to happen here as well. The trouble that you would have is if the before is this version, which is subject to criticism for being outdated and less compelling, then you're going to be boring your audience up until the point that it changes, which in this version of the show is the very end of Act 1:1. So you also understand the reluctance to do something like that. One other thing that I will say as I'm talking about the set design, is we have the title, the name of the show, Burlesque in Neon Lighting beforehand. We also have it projected multiple times on the back wall. If there's one thing that this production will offer you, and that you will really be able to leave the show with, it is an exact knowledge of how to spell burlesque. Like, if you had any kind of a flimsy grasp of this beforehand, you're really. You're really just going to have it in the bag by the time that you leave. Leave. And again, I do envision audiences walking away from this being really satisfied. I think for a lot of people, this is enough. I think it's going to be entertaining enough and charming enough and funny enough. And I think those real wow factor company moments can go a long way. I can't think of many other shows in the West End right now that are delivering that with the same kind of real force, other than something like Moulin Rouge, which is the obvious answer. But have our expectations been lowered by years of increasingly generic stage to screen musical adaptations? And ought we be asking for a little something more. To that end, here are some of the other issues which I have with Burlesque on stage.
- [27:45]
Advertiser
You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites with Indeed sponsored jobs. Your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Don't wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com Arts, just go to Indeed.com Arts right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.
- [28:47]
Mickey Jo
Now. I preface this by saying once again, I really was enjoying myself when I was watching this in the theater, but it was also incredibly, incredibly easy for me to immediately afterwards make an extensive list of everything that I thought was slightly challenged. The sight lines are not good if you are sitting at the edges of the front stalls. There are sort of cabaret tables on the stage for pretend audience members to watch the club scenes just to give it a little more atmosphere and to fill out the stage picture a little, but they extend far too far out towards the middle of the stage and they obscure the view. It gives the suggestion of a director who perhaps was too busy being blocked into the show as a performer himself, to really have the opportunity to get out front and see what it looked like from multiple different vantage points in the theatre. What we can see, regrettably, is the wig that Ali wears during Act 2. There are a couple of wigs in Act 2 that honestly no better than each other, but there is one that is just long and straight and basically unstyled. And it's the kind of wig that you would put on her head when you're just measuring it to begin with before you then do something to the wig. But it's as though they just ran out of time in previews, which is entirely possible and they just gave up on the idea of doing anything to this wig. It's horrible. My God, get this girl a new wig. I also think for a show that delivers so many show stopping musical numbers, the one with which we end the first act is it's not their strongest necessarily and so it's a weird energy to send us off to the interval with it's Also meant to culminate with a big costume reveal that didn't necessarily go perfectly at this evenings before performance. It feels like a sort of a scrappy energy on stage and like things are just about coming together. You have ensemble members moving pieces of scenery on and off stage in a very hurried fashion. And I just worry that it doesn't feel as slick a machine as perhaps it ought to. And with a limited run over the summer, I don't know if it's ever going to get there. It's a shame that she was wearing this ugly leather look dress over an outfit that was clearly much more impressive and that they never really got that off to reveal it. And I was like, like you wore that ugly dress for no reason whatsoever. But far bigger than any of these problems are the issues with the narrative. And I like the idea, I do, of having them be real life estranged mother and daughter. I think that that has legs. But the way that it is utilized, the way that the realization on Tess's part is so prolonged and delayed and the way that it's eventually squandered. Spoiler alert. As we head into the second act is just so disappointing. We get this contrived moment of faux outrage in which everyone simultaneously finds out that Ali is actually Tess's daughter and everyone has a strong emotional negative reaction to it. Jackson, who at this point has just commenced something of a cautious relationship with Ali, having dumped his girlfriend, he is for some baffling reason taking this all extremely personally because he lacks the emotional intelligence to just say to her, her, how come you didn't feel comfortable telling me that this was the reason you came here in the first place. And Tess herself is far too easily convinced by the ex husband who co owns the club with her, who she knows to be an awful dirtbag, that Ali has just been using her for the opportunity to sing in the club, using the fact that she is her daughter despite having never once revealed it to her. Vince is played with brilliant British villainy and smarm by George Maguire. He gets a decent villain song in the film first act. It reminds me a little in terms of the way that it's staged of Step into the Bad side from Dreamgirls, possibly just because that's another show that I've seen at the Savoy. It does come immediately after you haven't seen the Last of Me and is almost twice as long. That felt egregious. But here's part of a whole financial subplot that is heavily reworked from the one in the film. There are no Air rights in the stage version of Burlesque. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you if this is the first time you're hearing that the financial subject plot in the musical version, I don't think for one single minute makes even a bit of sense. There are so many confusing inconsistencies with all of this. And the whole premise at the start is that Tess is just neglecting to reply to the letters from the bank and she's not paying the bills and she doesn't have the money because she doesn't want to access a safe deposit box in which she has been depositing money for her daughter all these years. And so eventually they come up with the very musical theater decision to just put on a new, exciting show and then people will come and they'll make great money and then they do, but it's not enough. And then she can't pay the bank, but then she can pay the bank. But the business model hasn't really changed, just a whole lot of inconsistencies as far as this financial subplot goes. Vince also tries to convince Nikki, who by this point has been fired from the club for just having a bad attitude to help him steal the money from the safe deposit box. Only she then has an entirely out of character change of heart when she finds out that Ally is actually Tess's daughter. And she 180s on her character motivation and decides to return this money to Ali and help them to take down Vince and humiliate him by making him wear one of the suggestive sort of bodysuit burlesque outfits and filming him in it and making him literally walk through through the auditorium of the Savoy Theater. He has to exit at the back of the stalls. It's a very nine to five moment. Once again, another show that I have seen at the Savoy. And it's a little bit of a weird turn for the show to take, especially so late in the second act, especially when we rushed over the reunion between Ally and Tess, her mother, because she had fled. And even when she comes back, she's still mad at her mother because Vince had convinced her that Tess knew the whole time she was her daughter, but just didn't care. And even though she has already at this point found out that Vince was trying to scheme to steal her money, she hasn't put it together that clearly he was lying about that as well. Very slow on the uptake here. And ultimately I just question whether it really would have hurt the show for them to find out about the mother Daughter of it all considerably earlier on. I don't think it needed to be held for as long as it was, and I don't think the way in which it concluded was really worth it. And in the second act, the other thing that I really began to notice is that you can can so discern the super glue that is holding this book together. This book which struggles against the confines of its theatrical setting and is inconsistent and unfulfilling in terms of character and motivation. And there are so many moments when the form of the whole thing shifts in order to just get through a moment and get us to the next scene. There's one strange sort of of outof body purgatory chorus line moment in which they're all standing facing up stage under harsh cold lighting and they each take turns in turning around and revealing how they feel about the whole Ali test mother daughter reveal of it all. There's another moment later on where they all fast forward while standing in the same spot and they travel three months forward in time and kind of wink to the audience about the fact that they're still all wearing the same costumes. And it's lazy and it's cheap. And it's not the only cheap gag in the show. I should point out there are lots of current topical references, including a reference to the whole Coldplay cheating thing that the Internet has absolutely spent too much time fixating on in the past week. That joke is going to get old very quickly. And then pretending to break at it on stage multiple nights in a row. I'm sorry, but is cringe. There's a surprisingly protracted reference to the in the club we all fam viral tickets TikTok sound, which is then explained. And it's at that moment that I really just float up out of my body and question how we even got here in the first place and what theatre is and whether we really ought to be doing any of this. And then a few minutes later they do a really great production number and there's pyrotechnics coming down from the sky and they're wearing gold outfits and the vocals are great and the dancing's great and I stand up like a caveman and I clap in this sort of Pavlovian response. And I stand by that reaction and I enjoyed the finale, but it doesn't mean that that that strange TikTok reference didn't happen a few moments before. Anyway, I think enough has probably been said to characterize some of the shortcomings of this material, in my opinion. Let's finish as always by talking about the very talented.
- [36:48]
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- [37:45]
Mickey Jo
Company. So as I mentioned, Jess Foley is a real discovery here as Ali Rose. There isn't a great quantity of depth in the acting, performance or nuance, and there isn't much space for for that in the material. But there are moments that we could probably play with a little more consideration. When she first goes home with Jackson, the hot bartender from the club, simply because she needs a place to stay and he is looking out for her and she has misgivings about going home with him, and she realizes quite quickly that he has a girlfriend just kind of blatantly flirting with him. And she doesn't play the conflict here, she doesn't play the tension or any sense of like, feeling as though she ought not to. It's just sort of brazen. And, you know, that's fair enough. But it doesn't really resonate with the new stage version of this character who, I mean, all we know about her is she comes from Iowa, from this religious background. That is all we know about her community up to this point. What we do know is that the woman who she believed to be her mother has just died very recently, and it has been revealed to her that this was not her birth mother, and her actual birth mother lives in New York, New York. And there is no sense of grief or reflection whatsoever explored for the duration of this show. She just immerses herself in the world of burlesque. So much so that with very little justification, she pretty much gives up on the idea of trying to tell Tess that she is her daughter. She gives it a good sporting try for a couple of conversations in the first act, and then, you know, she just forgets. And I do understand, in a new contemporary adaptation of this story set in 2025, wanting to give her Some sort of a motivation for being the there other than her wanting to study all of these burlesque performances and be in the club as someone who is a gifted enough singer that her talent could really take her elsewhere. But that in and of itself is also a little bit tricky in a version of the club where everybody sings and they sing very well. Don't get me wrong, she has a sensational voice, but I don't know if it's enough in this version for that to be considered showstopped for her to be so much more talented than everybody else there. Not to mention all the immediate dance talent and the burlesque of it all. And no question as to where that actually comes from. Once again, Iowa church background, very little conflict about doing any of this. What Jess is, though, is extremely vocally talented and deeply charming. I've also talked a little bit already about Broadway veteran Orfeh playing the Tess role. What a treat for us in the West End this summer to have Aufe here sounding phenomenal. I mean, the voice, voice, the quality of it is just so full. The tone is so smoky and delicious. She sounds so great singing this material. I like the maternal moments that she has. It's a little bit like Donna from Mamma Mia. If she lived in New York City instead. There are a couple of scenes in the second acts that she has with Ali that are really vulnerable and revealing and really nice and just very sweetly played. There are a handful of lines throughout the thing that don't really feel as believable. And I think it's because it's just thin material and that she spends a lot of the show just running back on stage and shrieking about something that is going wrong with the club. And at times she starts to feel a little bit more like a drag parody character than a real person. But she is absolutely at her best. And we know this already about Orfeh when she is singing a rocky ballad. And that's why we should have the full version of youf Haven't Seen the Last the Last of Me. It would be so good. It would be so, so good. And even if for some reason that I cannot possibly bring myself to understand, you really have a personal objection to putting that damn song in the show. Once you cast or fae, you have an obligation to do so regardless. Then we arrive at Todrick hall and there's been much talk about Todrick inserting himself into a lot of this show and making it the Todrick show. And I agree in the way that it's framed. He Gets a much bigger focus than his character hat had in the film. He does sort of usurp tests at times in terms of who is really running this club and who is the emotional heart of the thing. But I didn't feel like he was fronting more production numbers than he ought to. I didn't feel like he was more prevalent than he necessarily needed to be. And the thing about Todrick is that he does his thing extremely well. He also plays a very funny drag character. I've seen him do this before in another musical called wild about YouTube. You I've seen him do musical theatre before in Chicago and I really enjoyed his performance here. He's got great comedy one liners that the audience eat up. Everything about his characterization is very charming, is received very warmly, but it's the way that he dances which is really enjoyable. And it's not like there are several layers of characterization for him to dive into and disguise himself beneath. There's scarcely one layer of characterization for him to do that. It just feels like a of ton Todrick hall character. But that is his shtick and that is what he does extremely well. And he does that in this. I mentioned already how phenomenal Jake Dupree was. I also want to talk about some more within the ensemble. Charlotte Giaconelli has a couple of real winning standout moments. Sophie Cracknell is a really charming character called Daphne. Her whole thing is that she's one of the performers who is a little bit dim. And because that gets a whole lot of great comedy lines. Billy Kay plays another of the burlesque girls who gets increasingly pregnant over the course, of course, of the show. I initially thought that she was Nikki when she entered. Nikki actually entered a little later in that scene. Of course, characteristically, she was late for work and she was played by Asher Parker Wallace. And I just wanted more immediate presence from her. I wanted to know who Nikki was and like with Tess, I just wanted her to arrive more substantially. I already mentioned that she has the slightly strange character and motivation pivot in the second act, but I think she plays the material that is put in front of her as convincingly as she can. George Maguire Meyer does great work as Vince. He is seedy. He could be even more villainous. And I think what would make the end of his arc make even more sense is if he played up and if there was more material around his misogyny and the power dynamic between him and the semi clothed ladies of the club who he keeps asking for private dances from. If they played that up even More then it's the power switch at the end of the second, second act that you understand that they're humiliating him with this thing that he sees as degrading. And it's not about them putting him in a position that they think is degrading, because for them, it's empowering. And it doesn't say anything about a man in women's clothing either. It's just about how he thinks of the role of the burlesque performer. Oh, one more thing about Nikki before I completely get away from it. And I cannot believe I forgot to mention this beforehand. She has one outfit that she wears, wears backstage at the club, and it's like a corsety top and like little tiny silk shorts which she continues to wear after being fired for days at a time. And then we see George as Vince, and he's wearing a different outfit. He could absolutely just wear the same suit, and I promise you, we would barely notice. But we absolutely notice that she is just wearing the same backstage burlesque outfit walking around the streets of Manhattan. And I've seen stranger things in the streets of Manhattan. I've seen somebody walk a pig into a Starbucks on a chain. But that's not the point. This character would have at least one change of clothes. Finally, though, we have arrived at perhaps the unexpected MVP for me this evening. And not because I haven't enjoyed him hugely in previous shows. I think he is a fascinating and unique rising star actor, but because I didn't think this was going to be the role and the character that I was getting excited about. But this is the wonderful Paul Jacobs French as Jackson, and I really enjoyed his performance. And I think we see so many sort of generic romantic interest boyfriend types who are charming and flirty in a sort of goofy and faux mocking way. And in contrast to, like, the character of Nate in Devil Wears Prada as an example, he is so charming here, and so much of it comes from the really unique quality that Paul brings to it. He just has this special thing. He has legitimate star power. He has this inherent sensuality about him as well, but he is so goofy and fun in this. And then when he dances, on top of all of that mesmerizing dancing, absolutely fantastic. I've enjoyed him every time I've seen him on stage. I think he is a remarkable talent and I'm excited to see what he does does next. In the meantime, though, those have been my thoughts about Burlesque the Musical. If you enjoy the film as a purist, then, you know, be aware of the changes that have been made. But if this still sounds like something that you would find exciting, if you want to just go and see great costumes and a stylish set design and big Dancy vocal production number numbers, I urge you to go and check this out at the Savoy Theatre this summer for yourselves and I hope that you have a fantastic time. I think it's possible to go to this show and have a fantastic time. It's also possible to scrutinize it and realize that it is objectively not the best version of a burlesque stage musical that we could have had. It's not the only version of a burlesque stage musical that we've had in the last couple years because it's very reworked from the version which premiered region originally. And while I will be forever intrigued as to what that version was like, there is also a part of me that would love to see a different creative team remount this show every six months between now and the end of time and in decades to come. Historians will have to look back and try and figure out which film this was ever based on in the first place as it becomes further and further and further from the source material. In the meantime, those have been all my thoughts about this version of Burlesque currently running in the West End, and I hope that you enjoyed listening to them. As always, desperately interested to know what you thought of it. Please comment down below with all of your thoughts and feelings about the musical. And if you enjoyed listening to mine, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel or go follow me on podcast platforms. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day for ten more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey Day. Subscribe.
- [48:10]
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