Review: Kinky Boots the Musical

Kinky Boots the Musical at MK Theatre – 29/10/19

Having seen the film Kinky Boots, I was very excited to go and see the musical that has arrived in Milton Keynes for the next couple of weeks.

Based on the true story of WJ Brookes, the musical follows the trials and tribulations of Charlie Price, a Northampton shoemaker, who has inherited a failing shoe factory from his father. To turn things around and stop the building being sold to property developers, Charlie decides that his company needs a niche market. Enter Lola! If you’ve seen the film, then you’ll know the casting of the character Lola is quite pivotal to the story, and the casting of Kayi Ushe as Lola in this stage version is perfect!

Lola is a drag queen that always has problems with the heel snapping on her (his) boots. Charlie sees this need and decides to do something about it. The audience is taken through the journey of Charlie’s up and downs as he produces ‘ladies footwear for men’.

Sometimes when a film is adapted for the stage it can cut out a lot of the detail and songs can be inserted for the sake of it – not necessarily adding anything. I don’t feel this was the case with Kinky Boots. The songs added to the story and engaged the audience with the mood of the scene, whether that be happy, sad or comical.

Giving the audience the complete immersive experience was the set. A backdrop of a shoe factory but with a central rotating ‘room’ that with a quick spin, transformed the stage to a bar, storeroom, a boxing ring or Lola’s stage. All very clever and allowed the action to flow effortlessly from one scene to the next.

On page 15 of the November Phonebox we spoke to Joel-Harper Jackson who plays Charlie. He said his favourite part is the big finale. Whilst watching it, you can really understand why he would say that as it was such a feel-good moment – and as he mentions, the audience really did go wild.

Kinky Boots is on at Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday 9^th November.

Tickets available from https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/kinky-boots/milton-keynes-theatre. I’d be quick though, as this is going to be a popular one.

Review: Saturday Night Fever

This week, seventies disco in all its hip-popping, strutting, grooving glory is in town at Milton Keynes Theatre. Based on the 1977 movie starring John Travolta. This story follows Tony Manalo, a 19 year old Italian American from Brooklyn who escapes the harsh reality of his bleak family life by dominating the dance floor at the local disco and dreams of making it big at Studio 54, New York. The show is filled with hits including Night Fever, Stayin’ Alive, More Than A Woman and Disco Inferno.

It is a fairly simple plot of boy meets girl, girl isn’t interested, boy keeps trying anyway but it is a likable story and has so much good music and dancing. It does cover a lot of serious themes, including religion, women’s rights, abuse, abortion and suicide. Disco dominated the latter half of the seventies and found its place amongst the other strong music genres of the time such as rock, heavy metal and punk. This show is all about the music, having a little dance in your seat and singing along to some banging tunes! The “Bee Gees” are on stage throughout the show, the three brothers are played by Jake Byrom, James Kenneth Haughan and Danny Knott and they were amazing, sounding just like the original music.

Tony is played by Richard Winsor – he’s one of the few actors that completely convinced me with his American accent, in this case Italian-American Brooklyn New York, and is a fabulous dancer. Richard is supported by a talented and energetic cast including Olivia Fines as Stephanie Mangano and Natasha Firth as Annette.

The staging was a good mix of bleak and harsh for the scenes outside and on the bridge and then bright and colourful for the disco scenes complete with disco dancefloor, giant mirror to reflect it back out to the audience and disco balls which really brought the audience to life. Look out for DJ Monty up on the podium dancing, he was strutting his stuff and we couldn’t stop watching him – having so much fun up there!

Saturday Night Fever is well worth a watch and I promise you’ll be singing the music and trying to do the Night Fever dance routine when you get home! Running until 19th October, for tickets, head to www.atgtickets.com

Review: The Exorcist

Something rather unusual and chilling has arrived at Milton Keynes Theatre this week. Possibly the scariest movie of all time, at least when it was first in cinemas in 1973, has been adapted for the stage. The Exorcist play is actually based on the book by William Peter Blatty, published in 1971, which was very important to the show’s playwright John Pielmeier who said in an interview in the show’s programme, ‘I certainly want to stay true to the story that people know, but I also want to explore elements of the book that they may not be familiar with. I want to fulfil their expectations while at the same time surprising them’. It absolutely gave the audience what they wanted, bringing new life to this famous head-spinning horror.

As a bit of a scary movie buff, I’ve seen my fair share of all things spooky, chilling and downright terrifying and must say this show did not disappoint! From start to finish, the goosebumps just kept coming. One of the best show starts that I’ve experienced (across any genre) that plunged the audience straight into the dark and thick of the story. 

The potty-mouthed demon that possesses poor Regan is as spiteful and disgusting as ever and the actress portrayed both her characters brilliantly. On the one hand she is a sweet, innocent little girl that longs for love and attention from her family and on the other she is the possessed Latin-speaking, aggressive, spitting Devil himself.

The staging was simple yet remarkably clever with a few rooms of the house, the attic, the outdoors and the church scenes all playing out across one set with the use of some screens and clever lighting. They also use a very smart and effective screen as the background to Regan’s bedroom where we see spooky happenings alongside flashes and crashes of thunder throughout the theatre. 

The lead characters were skilfully played by the actors which include theatre veteran Paul Nicholas as Father Merrin, Sophie Ward as Chris MacNeil, Ben Caplan as Father Damien Karras and Tristram Wymark as Uncle Burke. To top it off, the Demon is voiced by Ian McKellen – what more do we need?

The show is indeed chilling, but I can highly recommend it to anyone, not just fans of this genre. It was certainly a different audience experience to plays from other categories or musicals of course and was a night I thoroughly enjoyed. As stage designer Anna Fleischle said in the programme, ‘I am hoping that the audience will leave having been shaken to their core. I would like them to feel a sense of relief in the knowledge that they are going back to their safe and protective homes where there are no demons lurking in the dark – or are there?’

The Exorcist is on until 12^th October, for tickets, go to www.atgtickets.com

Review: Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Having never seen this show but interviewing Jason Donovan twice about it (once back when he was Mitzi and more recently as a producer of the show), it was time to go see what all the fuss was about – boy (or ladies!) were we in for a treat! I had very high expectations for this musical to be up there as one of the best, though a small part of me was worried it was going to be a bit cheesy with a story that loosely wove together some of our favourite classics from the eighties. Well, that worry was a complete waste of time, the story is brilliant, the music is superb and the staging and costumes are dazzlingly classy. These queens are in for the ride of their lives – and so is the audience.

Priscilla is the queen of the dessert, she’s their temperamental tour bus and together Mitzi, Bernadette and Felicia travel across the Australian outback to put on the show of a lifetime. This show is about how they get there with lots of little stories woven in about their backgrounds, some surprises and some quirky or bigoted characters along the way. It’s about love, friendship, fatherhood, identity and acceptance with some fabulous musical numbers and raucously funny moments.

The three lead characters are played by Joe McFadden, Miles Western and Nick Hayes. Each of them stole the show in their own way, Miles plays the transgender character of Bernadette, whilst Nick plays the super flamboyant Adam (Drag name Felicia) and Joe is Tick (Drag name Felicia) finding his own way in this world. The main message of this show is about the acceptance of everyone for who they are without judgement or violence and to celebrate the diversity and kindness of people no matter who they are (or what they choose to wear). Priscilla takes on many stigmas that the LGBTQ+ community deal with on a daily basis, even in today’s modern world, and sticks it's finger up at them.

You also really cannot go wrong with so much colour, glitter, sequins, feathers, outrageous headpieces and smash hits such as It’s Raining Men, What’s Love Got to Do With It, I Will Survive and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, each with perfectly choreographed dance routines. The stage set was really exciting too with lots of different scenes, the tour bus and one of my favourites was how they showed one of their performances from backstage – clever and funny.

Kings and Queens – go see this show!

Running until 5th October at Milton Keynes Theatre. For tickets, head to www.atgtickets.com

Review: 9 to 5 The Musical

9 to 5 is based on the film of the same name from 1978 and is about how three secretaries get their own back on their male chauvinistic boss. The story has been toned down a bit as they no longer want to kill him but more to punish and rehabilitate him.

The musical has Dolly Parton written all over it which is not surprising really as she has not just given her name to the show but had a massive input into it from the music to the story and the characters.

In some ways the story is dated and very much a story of its time being set in the 1980s. Its quirky, corny and daft at times but it seems to work as one forgets political correctness and the equality of men and women in the workplace that we take for granted (mostly) today. 

Apart from the song 9 to 5 the tunes and lyrics are unmemorable. No great hits here. Thankfully we had at least 2 renditions of 9 to 5 to get the audience up dancing and singing in their seats. 

The star of the show was Brian Conley who played Mr Hart the male chauvinistic boss from hell. It was amazing how he held the audience in the palm of his hand with perfect comedy timing. Let’s face it Brian can’t really sing or dance to any high level, but it didn’t really matter. Even with those limitations I can’t imagine anyone else could have done the part of Mr Hart so well.  What casting! The double act scene with Roz (Lucinda Lawrence) as she fantasised about her unrequited love for her boss was probably the best scene of all. 

It took a while to get used to the Dolly Parton character but Georgina Castle who played the role of Doralee soon began to bring the audience with her on this journey. Well done also to Laura Tyrer who ably stepped in to play Violet in this performance.  Also, a mention for Amber Davies who ably played Judy. What a great line up of actors.

The stage setting, the music and the lights were West End theatre at its best and all brought to MK Theatre.

This will be a sell out show so do try and see it. It’s on until Saturday 28^th September.  

Tickets from www.atgtickets.com/Miltonkeynes or telephone 0844 871 7652 (booking fee applies)

Review: Avenue Q at Milton Keynes Theatre

Review: Avenue Q at Milton Keynes Theatre – Tuesday 10^th September

Back for a second run at Milton Keynes Theatre this puppet show could initially be mistaken for the muppets. But this is certainly not the Sesame Street that you’d want your children to watch any time soon.

The story follows Princeton who is a fresh-faced English graduate growing up and trying to find his purpose in life – a life of humans, puppets and some rather offensive songs which you can’t help but start singing along with. Who knew there would be a five minute song about what the internet is actually used for?

Intermixing puppet characters and human characters together on stage as if they co-exist in the real world worked really well. Initially I thought I would pay more attention to the puppeteers instead of the puppets but as the show went on the puppets stole the show with their great facial expressions that portrayed their feelings and intricate movements progressing the story (although some of these movements are a bit more risqué than others).

The set remains pretty much the same throughout – the only changes coming from different ‘doors’ opening to indicate a different setting and changes in lighting to portray a change of mood or pace. I feel this had mixed success as when some of the doors opened, they were quite small and it was quite hard to see what was behind each door.

The small cast were fantastic – many of them operating more than one puppet and seamlessly switched between each character making it appear there were more cast members than there actually were. Stand out character for me had to be Trekkie Monster with his crude songs and matching actions.

Avenue Q is at Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday 14^th September.

Tickets available from https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/avenue-q/milton-keynes-theatre

An Interview with Richard Jones

This month Phonebox spoke with 2016 Britain’s Got Talent winner Richard Jones about his new show, his future ambitions and the proudest moment of his career so far.

“I think there’s something that all forms of magic have in common; the ability to make people smile”, Richard says. “It doesn’t matter what kind of day you’ve had or what’s on your mind, if you’re absorbed in a magic trick, it’ll always distract you from whatever you were thinking about”.

Having joined the Army in 2010 and spent three years in the parachute regiment, Richard got his big break in entertainment in 2016, when he became the first magician to ever win Britain’s Got Talent. Since then, he’s gone from strength to strength, becoming a highly sought out corporate entertainer, selling out tours across the UK and performing all around the world. He’s even a Gold Star member of the magic circle! He’s also had his own one off show on ITV, Operation Magic, which aired in 2017. But he’s never forgotten his roots and performed for troops in Afghanistan in 2018. 

He’ll be taking brand new tricks and some old classics across the country until the 13^thSeptember and going further into the future, he also has ambitions to take his show abroad someday. What has been the proudest moment of his career so far? Richard tells us affectionately, “I think the final of Britain’s Got Talent when I got to join my mentor, the veteran Fergus Anckorn, on stage is the time I’ve felt most pride. Fergus was the longest serving member of the Magic Circle and also an amazing soldier. I looked up to him so much. He passed away a few years ago and I miss him terribly but I’ll never forget that moment”. In Richard’s top two performances are the Royal Variety Show and performing for the troops in Afghanistan, as well as performing in his hometown of Braintree, in a show that all his family and friends were able to attend.

Richard tells us his favourite trick is one that Fergus taught him and is the only one where he’s willing to break the code of the magic circle to reveal how it’s done. You’ll have to watch the show to find out what that is!

Finally, we asked him about his desert island disc and he has a surprising response, “There’s one song in particular that I always play when I’m feeling a bit nervous and about to go on stage. It’ll make you laugh but it’s ‘Footloose’ by Kenny Loggins. It’s so upbeat that it always cheers me up and I feel totally psyched up to perform at the end of it!” We have to admit that sure is a good choice for a feel good song! 

Richard brings his nationwide tour to The Core at Corby on Friday 13th September. Tickets are available via: www.richardjonesmagic.co.uk/tour-dates