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How entertaining? ★☆☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 30 October 2013
This article is a review of THRILLER LIVE. |
“I'm Giving You
On Count Of Three
To Show Your Stuff
Or Let It Be . . .
I'm Telling You
Just Watch Your Mouth
I Know Your Game
What You're About,” lyrics from ‘Bad’
The 2000th performance of the London West End run received a press night. If you are expecting MAMMA MIA! or SUNSHINE ON LEITH levels of inventiveness, this is not for you. THRILLER LIVE is lazy and unimaginative. Depressingly so. The vast and ridiculously brilliant pop back catalogue of Michael Jackson is presented not in a narrative, but just as cover versions, over-sung and blandly choreographed. Various members of the cast take it in turns to interpret the modern music maestro, to jaw-droppingly awful results. If you’re a fan of quote-un-quote television talent shows, then you’ll probably have a ball. For everyone else, especially fans of the songs, THRILLER LIVE is a gruelling experience.
On Count Of Three
To Show Your Stuff
Or Let It Be . . .
I'm Telling You
Just Watch Your Mouth
I Know Your Game
What You're About,” lyrics from ‘Bad’
The 2000th performance of the London West End run received a press night. If you are expecting MAMMA MIA! or SUNSHINE ON LEITH levels of inventiveness, this is not for you. THRILLER LIVE is lazy and unimaginative. Depressingly so. The vast and ridiculously brilliant pop back catalogue of Michael Jackson is presented not in a narrative, but just as cover versions, over-sung and blandly choreographed. Various members of the cast take it in turns to interpret the modern music maestro, to jaw-droppingly awful results. If you’re a fan of quote-un-quote television talent shows, then you’ll probably have a ball. For everyone else, especially fans of the songs, THRILLER LIVE is a gruelling experience.
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Opening on imagery of MJ, and then seguing into a Jackson 5 medley, the show starts at the beginning of his career, and then zips back and forward in chronological order of musical releases. There is neither rhyme nor reason for the choices. This may be in a theatre, but is presented as if a gig. But why? Every impersonator and chanteur/euse is going to be a pale imitation. Interspersed among the crooning is a master of ceremonies who gives the audience factoids, supplemented by screen projected titbits, such as he made $750 million, sold 400 million albums worldwide, etc. Crude show-off stuff. We don’t get thoughts on the man. The controversial aspects of his life are unsurprisingly completely glossed over.
Audience participation is requested. Everyone stands and is asked to dance. If you’re already having a bad time, this adds another layer of the excruciating. Those around me seemed to be very much into proceedings, hollering and whooping along as if Jackson was in front of us. The overwhelming sense of a school production can’t be shaken, elevated only by a thumping sound system, and some decent lighting. At one point, during a rendition of ‘Dirty Diana’, two singers in pseudo-Roman centurion helmets dance on a couple of sofas. The host states that THRILLER LIVE celebrates Michael Jackson’s work. Does it?
When one saw Bob Dylan, he mangled the songs to unrecognizability, but at least it was him doing so. If the object of THRILLER LIVE is to make you crawl home in shock and awe, and reach for your CD/MP3 of the King of Pop, rock back and forth in gratitude that you own it, then mission accomplished.
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