Fringe Fantasmic! Heroes & Villains

Edinburgh Music Theatre presented 2 concerts, one after the other, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. The first of these was ‘Fringe Fantasmic! Heroes & Villains.’

Fringe ‘Fantastic’ would have been a most fitting title for this first class concert. A charming selection of numbers, mostly from musicals, which were familiar to the younger members of the audience, delighted the children many of whom could be seen singing along.

This was an extremely well choreographed and directed concert which was more like a full scale musical production with the company on stage the whole time in well placed groups interacting and responding to the soloists and smaller ensembles so that the entire cast was involved at all times.

‘Seize the Day’ (Newsies) got the evening off to a rousing start with the company making an immediate impact with it’s strong harmonious choral singing which was maintained throughout the evening. They also exuded non-stop energy and vitality particularly in ‘Step in Time’ (Mary Poppins), which was fantastic. There were some wonderful soloists and group ensembles, too many to mention individually, who all gave memorable performances in this very varied programme whether fun numbers like ‘Under the Sea’ (The Little Mermaid), ‘Gaston’ (Beauty & the Beast) ‘Zero to Hero’ (Hercules) or more serious numbers such as ‘The Gods Love Nubia’ (Aida), ‘Let it Go’ (Frozen) or ‘Part of Your World’ (The Little Mermaid).

The light-hearted evening of song and dance culminated in a wonderful ‘Circle of Life’ (The Lion King) with it’s incredibly strong soloist and the company moving out to circle the audience. It really was a spine tingling moment.

This was a truly fantastic programme of superb singing, slick, dynamic movement and charm, which I enjoyed immensely. As this part of the evening ended I knew that I was going to be in for more of a treat in the second concert, which was to follow.

Very well done E.M.T.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.