Transcript
Grow Therapy Advertiser (0:00)
Grief doesn't keep a calendar. Anxiety doesn't clock out after five, Depression doesn't care if it's your busy season, but support can still fit into your life. With Grow, you can find a therapist who meets you where you are. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions. You can search by insurance provider, specialty treatment methods and more to find a therapist who works for you. And if it's not the right fit, switching is easy. There are no subscriptions, no long term commitments. You just pay per session. Find therapy on your time, evenings, weekends and Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. Whatever challenges you're facing, GrowTherapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com acast today to get started. That's GrowTherapy. Do growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
Mickey Jo (1:10)
I could tell you in detail about why Paddington the Musical is as absolutely wonderful as it is. And don't worry, I am about to do just that. But perhaps the most important thing for me to convey to you is that both times I have seen this show I have sat in the theatre and felt so connected to, so reminded of what it to be. A small child, a young version of myself seeing magic on stage for the very first time. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo. I am obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a professional theatre critic here on social media. If you're joining me for the very first time, it's wonderful to meet you. I'm very excited to be sat here today getting ready to talk to you all about Paddington the Musical. Undeniably the biggest opening in London' West End this year, potentially the entire world as far as I'm concerned. This is a hugely anticipated new show that has been generating buzz for some time now, but has been all anyone in the theatre industry has been talking about since its first preview performance around a month ago, which I was lucky enough to attend. The show has its official gala opening this afternoon. You will be seeing this later that night. I saw the show's final press preview performance last night and I am going to tell you all about it. We are going to talk about the material, how Paddington himself is brought to the stage and to life as it were. We are going to talk about the many other performances from this very talented cast. And I suppose we're also going to have a conversation about who exactly the Paddington musical is for, because within the fairly broad genre of family entertainment, does this skew more towards a child or adult audience? Is it possible to go and enjoy this without kids? Those are the kinds of questions which arise and we will talk a little bit about that today as well. But I will say if you are considering getting T they are already sold out for some time now and as you are hearing these words, this may be just a few minutes after the reviews have started to drop, which I do anticipate being quite positive. So if you are going to try and get tickets to the Paddington musical, I would suggest that you do so as soon as possible. And if you are lucky enough to have seen it already at the Savoy Theatre in London, then comment down below. Let us all know what you thought alongside my review. Finally, if you enjoy listening to my thoughts and would like to hear more of them about other shows opening soon, then make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Turn on those notifications. It's button somewhere below my face. So YouTube lets you know every time I post a new video, which is basically daily, there's lots to talk about in the theater world. Or if you would prefer, you can go and listen to me by following on podcast platforms. For now though, slice yourself a Marmalade Sandwich it is finally time for us to talk about Paddington the Musical. Now I've said it before, I'll say it again. This could have been a relatively lacklustre show, a very commercial, sort of cheap enough version of Paddington Bear on stage and I think it would have sold really, really well for some amount of time. Regardless. Potentially sales would have dropped off after a certain point given possibly reviews, possibly word of mouth, but Paddington Bear. My point in all of this is that he is such a cultural icon at this point. If you have wandered the streets of London, you have seen little Paddington Bear plushes just like the ones they're selling at the show, for sale in the windows of various different shops. You may have seen the Paddington Bear experience. You may have seen Paddington Bear themed afternoon tea bus tours. Paddington is so culturally beloved within the UK that any version of a big splashy Paddington musical in the West End was always going to be a hot ticket for families. It is thrilling news then that the musical is as artistically rewarding as it is and the Paddington's inherent marketability and the brilliance of the show and the theatre fans and theatre goers finding out about that is, I think, going to result in an incredible long runner at the Savoy. I don't think we're going to see another show in that theatre for a decade at this point. I've already gone on ITV News and called this the best big new British musical since Matilda. I say big to separate it from the likes of the Brilliant Six and Operation Mincemeat. And we're going to talk about every individual who plays their part in helping to create that magic on stage. But it that it is magical. There's something of the Mary Poppins to it as well, as there kind of always has been. With Paddington. You find his stories, written originally, of course, by Michael Bond, very much at the intersection of Winnie the Pooh and Mary Poppins. I think, because you have this lovable, adorable bear with an extraordinary capacity for kindness, colliding in an initially very chaotic way with a central London nuclear family. With issues indicative, more broad, of people who we welcome into our lives, perhaps reluctantly, strangers who we meet who have the ability to change our lives for the better, expanding our understanding not only of what family is at this most basic and literal level, but also of what community is. The musical contends with that conversation as well, because it is, as always, a story about Paddington being discovered by the Brown family at Paddington Station, for which he is named, because his own original be name is impossible to pronounce. Going with them to their home in Windsor Gardens, where after something of an initial challenging teething period, he manages not only to improve their lives and bring the entire family closer together and foster Greater understanding between Mr. And Mrs. Brown between the generations, but also really find the heart of this community and this neighborhood and, you know, all of London. Why not? And I'm talking about community and I'm talking about London, and I'm talking about welcoming strangers into your home and into your family. And the thing about Paddington is he is a immigrant Peruvian bear who arrives at London train terminal asking for help and asking for understanding. And it has always been, for decades now, a story about compassion and a story about this family in this city who would welcome in an immigrant. And it uses a small little fluffy bear in a hat and a trench coat in order to kind of soften that story. But that's what we're talking about here. And I give the writers, that is Jessica Swale, book writer Tom Fletcher on the score, as well as director Luke Shepard, an extraordinary amount of credit for committing to telling that story in a way that is authentic in the current socio political moment. You didn't think you'd hear the word socio political in a Paddington the Musical review, but guess what? You just did, because it would be very easy to do a commercial version of this that appeals more broadly across the political spectrum of the country to everyone without reminding them of the fact that what we're really talking about here is accepting and welcoming in strangers. But from the very beginnings of this show, there is a framing device which we'll talk about in some more detail, that makes it clear that what we're talking about is somebody who had to flee their home in tragic circumstances, travel to London and asked to be taken in there was, circa the first preview, a more explicit version of this conversation where some neighbors from Windsor Gardens, a woman named Tanya, played by Brenda Edwards, and her son, spoke to Paddington about their experiences of coming to London and not initially being accepted, but subsequently learning about the beautiful diversity of this mixing pot culture that is no longer in the show because it is still running a little bit on the long side. At 2 hours and 40 minutes. There is an awful lot of story to tell here and there are so many characters played by so many wonderful character actors. But my point in all this is if you, like me, were beginning to feel a little bit jaded by all of the Paddington Bear iconography around perhaps the time of the passing of Queen Elizabeth ii, when for some bizarre reason, Paddington Bear became this remarkable symbol of devotion to the late Queen and a country which is now sadly slipping steadily and scarily back towards far right politics. Rest assured that this Paddington story heart entirely in the right place. So I'm trying to offer you as few spoilers as possible, but we are in this section of the review going to talk about how they have brought Paddington Bear to the stage and it's this extraordinary creative collaboration which I've spoken about before with not only designers but also specific directors. Audrey Brisson, star of Amelie and a circus performer, has been brought in as bear movement consultant and some additional puppetry, I believe, with Tara Zafar being responsible for the design of Paddington Bear himself, as well as some other puppets which are predominantly a couple of pigeons in bins. And the version of Paddington Bear who walks onto the stage after the first few moments of music in this show is so breathtaking and so delightful, the audience members are instantly moved to tears. People applaud in shock and delight. They haven't gone for a realistic likeness. I say this about a talking bear, but it doesn't necessarily look like the computer generated version from the three part film series, the first of which the plot of this musical is largely based on FYI, but he looks more like a sort of a teddy bear come to life. But he is entirely believable because of the way that he is realized on stage, because he is actually inhabited and portrayed by a human performer on stage in conjunction with another performer offstage, who is providing Paddington's speaking and singing voice as well as puppeteering. His mouth and the actual movement thereof is very intricate because it's not just a sort of bog standard open, close, but there's some sort of movement in the cheeks. And so the opening and closing of the mouth, it doesn't make different sophisticated shapes that would be altogether too complicated. And if they were to be able to program that, I think it would be an incredibly complex endeav and they wouldn't be able to do it on the fly. A great thing about what they can do with this version of Paddington is that he's actually being puppeteered live, rather than some sort of preordained speech pattern that James would have to line up with all of this to say it does take the littlest bit of buy in from the audience because when he says something quickly, there aren't quite enough mouth movements to be able to line up with that. You begin to forget about it soon enough. And the moments that really work are not only like sustained notes when occasionally he will also close his eyes in conjunction and look, you know, one of the queens from six hitting a power pose. But also the moments of reaction. Paddington's neutral facial expression, that is to say, Paddington's resting face, is one of sort of slightly saddened shock. So anytime, and it happens a lot in this opening scene when we first meet him that he sort of is startled or has to move back out of somebody's way or something upsetting happens. It's so adorable to just watch him react to that and the scale of him alongside everybody else that it is, this little Paddington sized bear on stage is the first thing that is heartwarming. And then subsequently you see him start to move around. That's the next thing you can see him breathe. Then you see him blink. And then finally when he begins to talk, it's awe inspiring. You can spend, if you choose to the next few scenes just watching Paddington in delight as he gradually begins to do more and more. It's adorable watching him sit himself down on a be tuck himself into it. The littlest things that shouldn't be sweet are because it's Paddington Bear. It's this very well known and very well loved character finally Real before our eyes. It's this inexplicable thing that you dreamed of in childhood but learned as a jaded adult could never possibly be. So for those two hours and 40 minutes, something bigger than musical theater storytelling is happening. Everyone is a child again. You have adults, parents, grandparents, sat next to their kids, watching with exactly the same wide ey. Wonder and joy. Now, I mentioned a combination of performers who play Paddington Bear. Artie Shah is the principal Paddington Bear on stage performer with a couple of alternate performers. Artie is an actor of short stature who has worked prolifically on screen. And the mannerisms of Paddington are so well realised. The nervousness, the slightly meek quality that he has. One of the most charming things about this story for me has always been the fact that. That people are not astonished by seeing this bear character walking around London. They're just like, oh, there's a bear in the neighborhood. I wonder what that might be about. Or like, they meet him at the station and they're like, oh, that bear's by himself. Rather than being like a bear, they're like, why is that bear not with his bear parents? And I've always thought that's a very sweet way of approaching this story that could equally be about people, you know, being shocked that a bear is walking around in society or that he can talk. And the Paddington that is realized on stage is indisputably one that we recognize not just in his appearance and in his physicality, but in the entire personality of his, which is brought to the stage as well, which is such a wonderful one, because, like I said, this extraordinary capacity for kindness, for compassion, and this enormous care that he has for the family who he has only recently met, for everyone who he encounters, this sort of naive trust that he has in the people who he meets in the community that he discovers, but also an unfailing sense of justice and the belief that people ought not to be rude to each other, which motivates one moment when he has to pull out one of the tricks in his arsenal, which is Paddington's hard stare, which we do see, given to one character at one point in the show. It's accompanied by an entire song about it. Because this is Paddington the Musical. And of course, it is that song, like the rest of his song material, is performed offstage by James Hamid. Although it's on stage that we see James first and before we meet Padd Paddington. The setup for the entire thing, the framing device as well as the initial set that we see when we walk into the Savoy Theatre Auditorium, is Mr. Gruber's shop of Curiosities. And as he begins to sing to us about everything in his shop having a story, we see a young man walk in, played by James Hamid, instantly noticing and being seemingly quite affected by a small bear toy, hearing a little bit of sung music, like a whisper on the wind. And then continuing in that song. The song which will be the first thing that we hear Paddington sings when he arrives a few moments later. And there's a beautifully staged moment by director Luke Shepard where the two of them stand alongside each other, where James and Paddington just stare into each other's eyes before James leaves the stage to begin giving Paddington voice from afar. And it, to my mind, it's something that we see a lot in musicals when you are likening one version of a character to another and you are implying to an audience that these two are associ it theatre's answer to Bluetooth pairing. When you hold two devices next to each other and you're waiting for them to tell you that they're connected, that's what this is. He has the most fantastic voice. Audiences have heard this previously in shows like Be More Chill and Just For One Day. He has this crystal clear high tenor range. He also has a lovely Paddington Bear speaking voice. It's not quite the same accent and affectation that Ben Whishaw was doing, and it's still, in spite of being a little bit different, a Paddington Bear voice that you will quickly recognize. Eyes. Now, there are two or three moments in the show that have made me cry twice now. The first comes towards the end of act one, when unexpectedly, James actually walks back out on stage singing Paddington's near end of act one, I Want Song the Explorer and the Bear, when he has finally discovered the identity of the explorer, who was a great friend of his Aunt Lucy's and Uncle Pastuzo's, who he is hoping to meaningfully reconnect with now that he has made it to London. And with the plot fully in motion by this point, James returns to the stage, walks down a corridor in the center of it towards the audience, triumphantly singing this song. And twice I have simply burst into tears. But also, it's that thing again of making a very deliberate choice to honour the theatrical storytelling that's going on here and all of the performers who are playing Paddington, because you don't have to show him at all. And I'm sure that there was perhaps an argument to be made for not showing him, because there's a level of illusion that you want to be able to maintain kids in the etc. There is a great way that they do this at the very end of the show because, you know, Paddington bows as Paddington and then again out of costume, which again, not necessary, arguably, but important. And before that happens, when James and Paddington as the bear bow alongside, there is a little pre recorded vocal moment where Paddington's mouth continues to move, but we can see that James isn't singing. And I didn't understand that straight away, but then by the time I'd walked out of the theater, I realized not only for kids in the audience, so they can entirely suspend their disbelief. Or perhaps the slightly older kids, the ones who are starting to question the existence of certain other magical characters who we talk about can see it and go, oh wait, maybe I don't understand what's happening here. I also think it's a bit of a wink to the adults as well, to be like, maybe magic is real. There's something very, very sweet and sincere about it. But I have spoken about Paddington himself long enough and there is plenty more for us to discuss in this show. Let's carry on to a con about the material.
