To The Lifeboats!!!! (And don't forget your earworms...)
When I go and see things, they fall into 1 of 3 things: stuff I absolutely adore and just cannot wait to see on stage (whether that be the first, second or fifth time): stuff that I have heard snippets of but don't know too much about: and stuff I have heard of but are effectively going in blind. Titanic The Musical is one of these. Ok, I had heard 1 song before thanks to EPOS, and the subject matter seems pretty obvious, but still - effectively blind.
Before you ask, no, this is NOT an adaptation of the multi-winning OSCAR winning film, although ironically enough, this musical opened just 6 months before the film came out. Based on the lives of passengers on board the infamous ship during its maiden voyage, it ran on Broadway for almost 2 years and won 5 Tonys, including the "Triple Crown": Best Musical, Book and Score. It's original cast also included the likes of Michael Cerveris, Victoria Clark and Brian D'Arcy James.
So, sounds intriguing right? True - but to be honest, the main reason why I decided to catch this was because it was playing at the Lowry on my birthday (happy birthday to me!). Plus, it is the first Maury Yeston musical I've seen, so it was interesting to see his work staged, as I'm not familiar with it; his best known work is probably Nine.
The piece has a MASSIVE cast (around the size of a cast for something like Les Mis), who are all incredibly talented, and you could tell that they were passionate and cared about the piece; a highlight for me being the GORGEOUS (and that's putting it mildly) Niall Sheehy as the stoker Barrett - can I also be honest and say that having Niall in the cast was a massive bonus in my decision to see the show.... =P
Despite that though, as it's namesake, Titanic seems to be taking on quite a bit of water, as it has two major problems for me. Firstly, like I said, the cast is pretty big, and what that means is that there are WAY to many characters to follow and for the audience to care about. You have not just the stoker, but also the Beanes, the Captain, Mr Ismay, the 3 Irish Kates and SO MUCH MORE! I understand Yeston and book writer Peter Stone wanted to give a range of classes, and yes it was a massive ship; but it did seem that quantity was picked over quality.
The second is the show's main issue - and this may take a bit of explaining, so bear with. The show was no earworm; and what I mean by that is that there is no tune you leave the theatre humming to/gets stuck in your head. Some shows may have a plethora of them (eg: Wicked can have Popular or Defying Gravity (or something else) stuck there), whereas others may only have 1. The only possible earworm was perhaps Barrett's Song - but, this may be because it was the only one I'd heard before seeing the show and it, like the rest of the score is so hard to sing, it just comes out like this in your brain:
"Da da da da da da da BAAACK!!"
Now, as far as similar ones are concerned, Chess (which I will be seeing very soon) is also known to be very hard to sing, but it has well known tunes like I Know Him So Well and Anthem to balance it out. Stephen Sondheim (who Yeston reminds me of due to a similar method of stuffing as many lyrics into a phrase as possible like you would stuff a sleeping bag back in the sack), also has similar feat; for example, Company has Being Alive, Into The Woods has the I Wish motif (for example), Follies has Losing My Mind etc etc. Titanic doesn't have that - and the reason this is important is that no earworm = far less chance for the show to be memorable with its audience.
However, it's not all bad news - like I said, the cast are extremely talented and the score is rich and grand, like the ship it's named after - just take the opening number God Speed Titanic and its reprise alone. I must also commend the effects, particularly how they showed the Titanic's final moments. If you want to try something new, you may enjoy sailing on the "floating city". Just be prepared for a bit of a bumpy journey (with or without icebergs).
So, sounds intriguing right? True - but to be honest, the main reason why I decided to catch this was because it was playing at the Lowry on my birthday (happy birthday to me!). Plus, it is the first Maury Yeston musical I've seen, so it was interesting to see his work staged, as I'm not familiar with it; his best known work is probably Nine.
The piece has a MASSIVE cast (around the size of a cast for something like Les Mis), who are all incredibly talented, and you could tell that they were passionate and cared about the piece; a highlight for me being the GORGEOUS (and that's putting it mildly) Niall Sheehy as the stoker Barrett - can I also be honest and say that having Niall in the cast was a massive bonus in my decision to see the show.... =P
Despite that though, as it's namesake, Titanic seems to be taking on quite a bit of water, as it has two major problems for me. Firstly, like I said, the cast is pretty big, and what that means is that there are WAY to many characters to follow and for the audience to care about. You have not just the stoker, but also the Beanes, the Captain, Mr Ismay, the 3 Irish Kates and SO MUCH MORE! I understand Yeston and book writer Peter Stone wanted to give a range of classes, and yes it was a massive ship; but it did seem that quantity was picked over quality.
The second is the show's main issue - and this may take a bit of explaining, so bear with. The show was no earworm; and what I mean by that is that there is no tune you leave the theatre humming to/gets stuck in your head. Some shows may have a plethora of them (eg: Wicked can have Popular or Defying Gravity (or something else) stuck there), whereas others may only have 1. The only possible earworm was perhaps Barrett's Song - but, this may be because it was the only one I'd heard before seeing the show and it, like the rest of the score is so hard to sing, it just comes out like this in your brain:
"Da da da da da da da BAAACK!!"
Now, as far as similar ones are concerned, Chess (which I will be seeing very soon) is also known to be very hard to sing, but it has well known tunes like I Know Him So Well and Anthem to balance it out. Stephen Sondheim (who Yeston reminds me of due to a similar method of stuffing as many lyrics into a phrase as possible like you would stuff a sleeping bag back in the sack), also has similar feat; for example, Company has Being Alive, Into The Woods has the I Wish motif (for example), Follies has Losing My Mind etc etc. Titanic doesn't have that - and the reason this is important is that no earworm = far less chance for the show to be memorable with its audience.
However, it's not all bad news - like I said, the cast are extremely talented and the score is rich and grand, like the ship it's named after - just take the opening number God Speed Titanic and its reprise alone. I must also commend the effects, particularly how they showed the Titanic's final moments. If you want to try something new, you may enjoy sailing on the "floating city". Just be prepared for a bit of a bumpy journey (with or without icebergs).
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