The Musical of Musicals, The Musical!

For those of us obsessed by musical theatre there have been several shows which copy styles, lyrics and music from other musicals but none to my knowledge quite as blatant as “The Musical of Musicals The Musical” presented by Throwaway Theatre.

Presented in sections we get basically the same story told in five different ways by five different composers or creative teams. ‘Corn!’ (Rogers & Hammerstein), ‘A Little Complex’ (Stephen Sondheim), ‘Dear Abby’ (Jerry Herman), Aspects of Junita (Andrew Lloyd Webber) and ‘Speakeasy’ (Kander & Ebb).  This show was created by Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart in 2004 and was an off-Broadway hit.

Part of the fun for musical buff’s is recognising which original show a specific tune, lyric or chorus came from and also which chorus or song title was about to be changed or corrupted as a throwaway laugh.

Christopher Allen, Lucy Barnett, Dominic Brewer and Charlotte Grace are left with the task of performing these transformations and these very talented people seem to be having a blast. Each one of this quartet have lovely voices and from what we saw are superb performers. The pianist on stage was, I presume Andy Ralls the company Musical Director, he is charged with the task of keeping the performers in tune, on time and under control, he also narrates where required and gives us the audience our instructions.

Along with the superb voices the main star of the show is actually the clever rearrangements, adaptations and development of all the lyrics and music into completely new storylines utilising probably the best-known refrains from numerous musicals. The pleasure is listening to the voices and the fun is counting just how many musicals were utilised.

*****

Sheila

Fringe Programme Page No

p 175

Company

Throwaway

Venue Name and Number

C too, St Columba's  V4

Dates and Times

17th  to  25th  August  18.10  to  19.30

Comedy 2008

Music 2008

Others 2008

Theatre 2008

Musicals 2008

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