13 The Musical

This was a completely new musical to me, I had never heard of it or any music from it, but I would certainly like to see it again.

The story is basically the happenings of a New York Jewish boy, Evan, moving to Appleton Indiana, trying to make new friends there and preparing for his Bar mitzvah.  All the innocence and idiosyncrasies of 13 year olds come out, together with their early discoveries of what life is all about in a very natural and comedic way.  The girl who is not liked by the rest of the gang, Patrice, and whose only friend is a boy who is totally and easily coping with his terminal illness , Archie, who is also a social outcast, become the two closest friends of Evan.  So all the story of ‘us and them’ evolves between the twelve characters of the show.  The opening of Act 2 was hilarious when they have all gone, underage, to see a horror movie and are terrified, two boys trying to date the same girl end up with their first ever kiss – to each other!!  Of course, everything eventually works out well with a happy ending.

There were some excellent performances particularly from Joey Wilby (Evan), Patrice (Natasha Hudson) and Archie (Ben Burke), who, between them, had the  majority of both words and music to learn, all backed up excellently by the rest of the cast.  The show was greatly appreciated by the small audience – it was a great pity more people didn’t support this very talented society.

The music is obviously very pop based almost turning into Rap at times but the notation and timings were not easy but this young cast carried it off with great aplomb.  The band, led by the society’s accompanist Japjisingh Valecha, kept the beat going and as always was well controlled by Ian Sapiro.

This is Ian’s last show for a while in Bradford as he turns his attention to helping to bring up his young family.  Thank you Ian for all you have done for Musical Theatre and we look forward to seeing you, a little older and greyer perhaps, when the family are grown up.

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