I'm a Believer!

As a quick treat before I go off skiing, I managed to catch one of the final dates of the UK tour of Shrek: The Musical at the Lowry in Salford. I have kind-of reviewed it before in my round-up of 2014, but this is an opportunity to go into it a bit more; and as they had never seen it before, I wanted to introduce the show to my parents.

Written by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori (the latter of whom has written hits such as Thoroughly Modern Millie and last year's Best Musical Tony win Fun Home), the show premièred on Broadway in 2008 and starred Brian D'Arcy James, Sutton Foster and Christopher Sieber. The West End production arrived in 2011 and starred Amanda Holden and Nigel Harmon (who won the Olivier for his portrayal of Lord Farquaad, and who also directed this particular production).

There are 2 different people I need to mention first of all after last time first of whom being Iain Mattley, who was Dean Chisnall's understudy as Shrek, who gave plenty of both humour and heart, and could have fooled any child in the audience that it was the real Shrek there on stage for them.
The second is Bronté Barbé as Princess Fiona, who is the only principal role to be different after the cast change last year. She was a lot more ballsy than Faye Brookes was (who I saw last time as Fiona), in fact, I thought at one point she was going to bite Shrek and Donkey's heads off. Having said that though, she did put in a really believable Fiona, and I am exited to see what she does next (I always thought she left Over The Rainbow too soon).

But like last time, this show belonged to Gerard Carey and his hilarious, flamboyant and camp Lord Farquaad. No-one certainly puts this Farquaad in the corner! My parent's frame of mind was exactly the same was when I first saw it: "How is he doing that on his knees!". Every single time he was on-stage, he was running around all over the place, laughing and throwing jokes left right and centre, for the kids and adults alike. This is where having Harman as director must have helped, because Carey's Farquaad is simply sensational!

The is a special quality about this show, which also draws a similarity with Mary Poppins, which I saw recently. There was a real magical feel for children. Just like Mary flying above people's heads at the end of the show, there was a real sense that these are the characters that we know and love from the film. To a young child, what was the difference? And that's one of the things (as well as the great songs and hilarious script) that really made me fall in love with Shrek.

Oh and there is one more thing - the best anti-mobile phone announcement HAS to go to Shrek: if a phone goes off, the ogre will jump off the stage, to your seat, and will fart on your head...