East/West relations are definitely an apt subject matter for today’s political climate, and it was lovely to hear a full orchestra play the overture as there is something exquisite about hearing music played to its fullest. And seeing Michael Ball is always a treat and gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. He is fantastic, and you can tell that he is a great company leader and having fun and enjoying himself - he makes me want to be part of the company! His rendition of ‘Anthem’ just before the interval gave me goosebumps, although it really should be written so as to give the singer the choice as to whether they go up or down at the end as going up has a lot more flair and would sound absolutely incredible in a space such as the Coliseum.
Cassidy Janson was also fantastic as Florence Vassy (I could have sworn that they called her Bassy!) with such a brilliant voice. She did, however, rather show up Alexandra Burke in their duet of ‘I Know Him So Well’. Whilst Burke can most definitely hold her own on stage with a power ballad, she has very little variation or light and shade to her voice: she is either quiet or belts, and there is no real expression or emotion. Janson on the other hand knows how to act using her voice, and these differences were painfully apparent when they were out side by side.
And, speaking of painful, Tim Howar’s Freddie Trumper was painful to both watch and listen to. He was completely odious (which might have been the point) but it meant that you had absolutely no sympathy for him when he sang ‘Pity the Child’. He also looked like a disguise out of the TV show ‘The Americans’ which was rather distracting.
There was no chemistry between Burke’s Svetlana Sergievsky and Ball’s Anatoly Sergievsky, which made their relationship unbelievable. In fact, other than perhaps Ball’s Sergievsky and Janson’s Vassy, there was no real chemistry between anyone that made any relationship believable. All the characters felt very flat and two dimensional, with no real depth or character development, and this is reflected in the structure of the show as once again this is a musical that is constructed of (almost) entirely sung monologues. Other shows definitely have sung monologues, but those in Les Mis and Phantom and Miss Saigon don’t seem to jump out and hit you in quite the same way.
This production could do with being cut by about 20 minutes, and having the audience sit and watch three chess matches played on a board whilst TV stories of the East/West tensions flashed on huge TV screens on both sides of the stage felt like a missed opportunity. I have seen a production where the final match was brought to life by the cast taking on the role of the chess board and pieces, and that was brilliant. This production should have used a device like that because watching three chess matches was fairly dull and people began looking at their watches.
While the use of TV screens and onstage cameras worked for some of the show, and I’m assuming was a metaphor for how under the microscope people are when it comes to these political relations, it actually became really distracting and I found myself watching the screens rather than the actor. So this device needed to be used a little more discriminately.
And either I am getting old or need to get my hearing tested, because this was once again a production where the lyrics of the chorus numbers got completely lost in a cacophony of sound! I genuinely had no idea what was being sung which is, unfortunately, becoming a running theme for the show’s that I see. Why is this? Maybe I’m just particularly sensitive to the sound balance and it’s ok for everyone else, because surely if most audiences were missing great chunks of the show the technical team would do something about it!
So, I am glad I saw this show, and glad I saw Michael Ball, but I wouldn’t be rushing back to see it.