REVIEW: ABBA Voyage @ Abba Arena, London

 

**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS**

Well what a year it has been for ABBA fans. The Swedish super-group who once vowed they would never reunite have burst back on the scene after 40 years with a brand new album and a state of the art digital concert.  And they once again have shown the world that Class not Speed is their byword.

The virtual concert experience was first mooted in 2016 and fans speculated that perhaps a new song might follow.  The project took longer than anyone predicted as brand new technology was employed - via George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic - to bring a 1970s version of ABBA back to life.  Last year Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Frida gathered in a Stockholm studio dressed in motion capture suits to 'perform' the new concert in full over 5 weeks, with 160 cameras capturing their every movement.  These images were sent to the technical bods who have used them as the basis for re-imagining the 1970s ABBA.  On the back of this,  a brand new album Voyage was released,  the first new music from ABBA in 40 years.  

Whenever ABBA put their name to something it has to be artistically fulfilling. The original songs all those years ago were perfectly crafted nuggets of pop which, it can be argued, have never been bettered.  Then in 1999 Mamma Mia set the standard for all future jukebox musicals and has gone on to become one of the biggest theatrical and movie franchises ever.  Now, they are blazing a trail yet again by inviting us to 1979 and the concert we have all longed for.

As you enter the purpose built ABBA Arena there is a sense of a community.  It is more of a convention than a show. This band mean so much to so many. 3000 people wait expectently for the Arrival.  As the ABBA-tars rise up onto the stage in silhouette, a roar of approval goes up.  But then the lights are on them.  What?  How?  The illusion has to be seen to be appreciated. Seemingly physically before us are Agentha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-frid.  But in their legendary 1970s form.  If we were closer we are sure they would shake us by the hand.  It is breathtaking in its beauty and genius.  As the girls voices blend into one making those iconic harmonies,  the audience are transported on a wave of magical light to the concert of their dreams.

 

The power of the music is provided by a 7 piece band - with three backing singers - which take the roof of the building in both volume and viruosity.  Recreating the ABBA sound in a live environment is not easy and their musicianship is a large part of the show's brilliance.

Director Baillie Walsh has worked out that a 90 minute show with just four figures singing might be pushing the concept a little far,  so into the mix has been added an artists palate of light and animation - each element fusing with the music and the ABBA-tars to create an immersive arena of images and concepts. Such is the way the shows visual elements are employed that it is neccessary to see the show more than once to appreciate just what is going on at various points in the auditorium.

It is the ultimate nostalgia experience, coupled with state of the art technology.  As my friend said to me, ABBA Voyage is a (name of the) game changer.   Despite all the technology the biggest thrill is hearing songs such as 'Dancing Queen',  'Waterloo',  'Mamma Mia' and even a couple of unexpected album delights transfix the audience. At times it becomes a huge singalong.  This is not just music.  It is the soundtrack to so many lives.  For many a reminder of a simpler, happier time.  The brilliant songwriting of Ulvaeus and Andersson able to transport us to emotions and feelings that only the very best compositions can realise.  A pop orgasm.

If this is ABBA's swansong to the world,  they couldn't have chosen a better memorial.  It salutes the past and embraces the future.  We thank them for the music by laying all our love.  The ABBA Voyage experience confirms what I have always believed. ABBA are the greatest pop band of all time.

Rob Cope

Further details can be found at abbavoyage.com 

 

REVIEW: THE CHER SHOW (UK Tour) @ Manchester Opera House

 

Listen up bitches. Pop stars don't come much more iconic than Cher. From her first hit in 1965,  she is still churning out music which is being snapped up by multi-generational buyers nearly six decades later.  It was perhaps inevitable that her life and music catalogue would make it to the musical theatre stage.  And this it did in 2018 when The Cher Show opened on Broadway amid much publicity.   It has taken a little while to cross the Atlantic but now a brand new revised UK production has set off on tour bringing the style icon's story to stages across the land.

The awkward teenager Sherilyn Sarkisian, from mixed race parents, has been the subject of racial predjudice and harrassment but from these humble beginnings and encouraged by her forthright mother she discovered an unusual and powerful singing voice. Meeting Sonny Bono when she was just 16 was the turning point.  Sonny was an upcoming  song writer and producer - being mentored by Phil Spector - and the first song Cher ever sang on was background vocals to The Ronettes' 'Be My Baby' in 1963.

To tell her meteoric rise to fame the author Rick Elice has brought in three actresses to portray Cher at different stages of her life.  Millie O'Connell (Babe),  Danielle Steers (Lady) and Debbie Kurup (Star).  All three ladies work hard to bring out the distinctive Cher mannersims and low vocal style.  O'Connell still perhaps reminds me more of her Maureen in Rent than Cher at times, but she is a great performer and her natural charisma carries her through.  Steers and Kurup get to portray the more familiar rock goddess and they both nail it,  voices to die for and looking fabulous.  All three have 'turned back time' to give us a heavy flavour of the icon.

For every Cher there has to be a Sonny,  and here the production is blessed with the amazing Lucas Rush who nails Sonny in his younger years,  bringing out Bono's natural flair for comedy and also the more troubled Bono as their marriage breaks down.  It is a first rate performance. Sam Ferriday proves a chameleon during the production playing Cher's husbands Greg Allman and Rob Camilletti (with very dodgy wig), Phil Spector and Cher's step Dad Joe Southall.  Legendary costume designer Bob Mackie is given life by Jake Mitchell, who seems to be channelling the great Australian camp comedian Bob Downe.  Tori Scott has the difficult task of giving us a rounded character in Cher's Mother Georgia, given there is little stage time and only a few moments of clunky soundbites to work with.

Director Arlene Phillips and costume designer Gabrielle Slade have made this a production of dark brooding scenes interspersed with glorious technicolor set pieces. Despite the many sequins on display there isn't however any sense of Cher's outrageous stage wardrobes.  I'd have liked to have had a sense of her penchant for the OTT in the finale.But that's not to say the show doesn't look fabulous, because it does.  Choreographer Oti Mabuse finds the dance styles of the 60s and 1970s variety easily,  and the hard working ensemble dance up a storm around the principal performers.

But of course the backbone of the show are those songs...  35 of them crammed into two hours.  I Got You Babe.  Gypsies, Tramps And Thieves.  Song For The Lonely.  If I Could Turn Back Time.  Heart Of Stone. The list,  like the beat, goes on and on.  Some are just short refrains and there were times I thought some of the dialogue could have been trimmed in favour of giving us full on versions.  But that is the nature of the dramatic musical, it is not a concert and the light and shade have to be carefully balanced.

Musical Director David Belton leads his four strong band into the mix with the sequencing producing a big sound worthy of the incredible pop material they are given to work with.  

Overall The Cher Show is a wonderful night out.  Just when you think Cher's woes (she doesn't get nominated for an Oscar for her first movie.  Yeah, I know it's heart breaking!) might overwhelm the piece, one of those songs just lifts you right out of your seat.  By the time we get to the finale - what other song than Believe,  still the biggest selling song by a female artist ever in the UK - the audience are itching to get up and dance. And this production delivers on that promise. Three Chers, one incredible show.  Follow that bitches.

 

Rob Cope for Doctor Theatre

Tour details can be found at cheronstage.com  

 

REVIEW: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH @ HOME, Manchester

 

If ever a piece of theatre was ahead of its time, it is Hedwig and the Angry Inch.  Originally premiering in 1998, this transgender tale of a beautiful German boy who undertakes a botched gender reassignment operation in order to marry an American soldier and escape communist East Berlin, is a cautionary one.

Defining the show is difficult.  Is it theatre?  Is it a rock concert?  Is it a stream of consciousness outpouring?  Well it is all of these things but more than that, it is a dream showcase for the right performer.  Thank goodness someone had the good sense to marry Hedwig with Divina De Campo. The role fits the Drag Race UK star like a glove.  With her amazing three octave voice,  De Campo inhabits Hedwig Robinson as the embittered performer plays the Rusholme Community Centre with her band The Angry Inch. Whilst her former songwriting partner,  now turned megstar,  Tommy Gnosis plays Old Trafford just a stones throw away.  Gnosis is recovering from an accident which saw him crash his car whilst high and being given a blow job by Hedwig. 

The story emerges that Hansel (Hedwig) suffered an abusive relationship with his mother,  but inherited a love of Western rock music from her which made the young boy dream of escaping to the West and becoming a singer.  On meeting the aforementioned soldier (and being conivnced to have the unfortunate surgery) a new life beckoned in Kansas.  It was not to last, and now Hedwig tours with her band and her husband Yitzhak (a charismatic and mostly silent stooge, Elijah Ferreira).  Her tortured existence constantly searching for 'the other one', a way of completing the person she needs to be.

Director Jamie Fletcher has pitched this show perfectly.  He gives it a local flavour but never lets us forget this is a story of international borders, and repression.   It is quite a dark journey but this is tempered with some bawdy humour (and endless blow job references) which keep us from descending into the depths of Hedwig's soul for too long.   I have to confess that I have never watched Drag Race so I knew nothing of Divina De Campo.  But this is a true star performance,  De Campo commands the stage for one hour and forty minutes solid,  delivering all the characters in Hedwig's life with aplomb.  At times scary, vulnerable,  fearsome and despondant - every beat is picked up on and expanded in De Campo's amazing performance.

The punk / glam score by Stephen Trask offers the intense rock soundscape the character demands.  The on stage band (Alex Beetschen, Frances Bolley, Isis Dunthorne, Jess Williams) play with virtuosity and whip the audience to a frenzy as Hedwig veers out of control before emerging sans wig and outrageous outfits,  as she finally finds peace and acceptance within herself.

Hedwig is in many ways not an easy piece,  it demands some intelligence of the audience,  but when it is so convincingly portrayed as it is here, the show becomes a mission statement for anyone who differs from the norm.  I would hope this co-production between Leeds Playhouse and Manchester's HOME has a life outside the current engagement.  If only that the stellar blaze of Divina De Campo's Hedwig can be experienced by a wider audience.  Whilst Hedwig may have hit her rock bottom in Rusholme,  De Campo has award winner written all over her for this blistering portrayal.  

Rob Cope