Musicality

For a production which is driven by music, more attention could have been given to the variation of musical styles and sounds as musically, the mood and tone didn’t change from one section to the next, perhaps keyboards rather than an electric piano would have improved to help create the variations of styles needed and produce a more diverse sounding trio. 
Each musical number within each section was delivered as an individual piece, nothing segued and we didn’t see much musical creativity such as mash-ups, solo’s arranged as an ensemble number or visa versa which is what many would expect from such styles of shows.

Quite often, musical revue shows require a fair amount of ensemble movement, although I don’t usually favour multiple choreographers for productions, I do appreciate that it helps to lighten the load and I must give credit as the presentation of movement wasn’t as broken or as obvious as I've seen in other similar shows which have used multiple choreographers. On occasion, the moves didn’t fit with the piece being presented, when choreographing for musical theatre the movements must be reminiscent to the lyrics as well as the music which wasn’t always the case resulting with movement which looked odd as it often didn’t make sense with what the characters were singing about.

Revue shows can be an ideal opportunity to get creative juices flowing - such as; presenting songs out of their original context or piecing numbers from lots of different shows together to almost create an original narrative or theme. This production, however, was presented as a series of trailers from hit shows with set and costume to reproduce the production they’ve chosen to acknowledge, always paying homage to how it’s ‘done’ - this style restricts any original creativity for a production team to present something slightly unique and imaginative which is always an advantage for such shows.

It may come as no surprise for me to say that I thought the lighting was excellent – we were given interesting and mood specific designs which complimented the action, good job (as always!).

I’d have to say that my personal highlight was the ‘Fosse’ section - the ensemble movement looked great and was delivered with style. I cannot believe I would ever say this but I was quite relieved that this section was performed to backing tracks. I would always prefer live music over tracks but it certainly worked for this production. Perhaps the Mamma Mia or Priscilla sections would have given the style of sound required if done to track also. 

Revue shows are definitely a popular craze at the moment, the cost of staging them are certainly an attractive aspect and as a way of generating money for a society.
Should you continue with revue concerts, don’t be afraid to take risks, maybe medleys would help the production appear more fluid and perhaps something a little unexpected and original to make your revue stand out from the masses would be a favourable feature.

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