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Musicals are rubbish


waters44

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Like I said, the only good musicals have Oliver Reed in them. During Tommy he was allowed to drink real alcohol doing the recording and filming, and it resulted in a natural decent result. 

 

Also, Richard Harris for Camelot as it gave us Macarthur Park off the back of it. 

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24 minutes ago, PowerButchi said:

Oh, also Grease 2 pisses on Grease 1.

Yes!!!!!!! Back to school again, the bunker scene, ghost rider, the entire luau section........ Fucking amazing 

26 minutes ago, LCJ said:

I tend to agree that musicals are rubbish. I watched Rock Of Ages (the film) as it’s the genre of music that I tend to like but that wasn’t the best either. Just pure cheese.

I've seen the rock of ages musical 4 times now, it's a bit dirtier and seedier than the movie, and fits with the music better...... I realised that julianna hough has a tendency to clean up dirty girls, Sherry, sandy, the preachers daughter in footloose. Stop putting her in remakes..... 

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4 pages and not one mention of Willy Russell's Blood Brothers? And you call this a musical thread.

Anyway, The Book Of Mormon is one of my favourite ever theatre experiences. Surpassed my high expectations. I have probably seen Avenue Q the most though. The worst show I've seen though was probably Aladdin. I thought it was an awful stage performance from Disney. The Lion King was far better and I didn't think that was, other than the costumes and set, all that good considering the high esteem. 

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Regarding the rapping ability of people in Hamilton - their relative skill at rapping of characters is part of the play.

Now the original comment may have been directed at everyone involved, in which case I guess our opinions just vary on the ability of people but the point is characters are reflected in their rapping. The early scene with the guys in the bar is supposed to show them clunkily expressing themselves so old Hamilton showing up is a stark contrast - reflecting what his mind was bringing to things.  Burr raps half heartedly most of the time, he can't fully commit. End of the first half has people like Lafyette and Mulligan doing more complicated stuff to show their development. Washington's rapping is metered but desperate without much flow, he's more a general than a revolutionary mind.

I will totally admit that many of the actors aren't the best, they definitely needed to find Broadway type people who could rap - I think the play would suffer much more if you did it with people's who's main skill was rapping

Apart from Daveed Diggs who just seems to be good at whatever he turns his hand to.

(And that's one example of a version of his style, before any suggestion of "just cos it's fast doesn't mean it's good" arises)

Edited by organizedkaos
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All the stuff you've said there is really only pointing to the fact that the raps have been written very well and thoughtfully to be appropriate to the characters. If anything it highlights how detrimental having performers who can't rap properly is.

I think they're fine as it goes, from what I've seen so far. It's only Aaron Burr really whose performance I don't think that much of.

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That's a really interesting post, @organizedkaos - I haven't seen Hamilton, so can't comment on the show, but in itself it's a fascinating point you make. I love that sort of attention to detail in anything.

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Oh there's a reason it has a pretty nerdy contingent to it's fanbase, the level of detail on multiple levels (from standard play/show foreshadowing / references, to references to the history of hiphop and musicals to just layer after layer of character detail [down to tiny stuff like Burr moving in straight lines and Hamilton moving in arcs to represent how they perceive their careers/political aspirations]).  The thing is dense with detail.

Also probably one of the reasons some people just don't click with it, it's completely unashamedly nerdy and facinated by what it's talking about.  Jeremy O Harris just did a great interview where he used that basis to explain both why it's so good and also why it's flawed (especially with respect to it's lack of criticism of a system that has not worked out well for PoC)

 

EDIT: Chest posted whilst I was typing my reply.

My point was that the performers rapping abilities are potentially not on display cos some are intentionally rapping in a specific style. Watching Daveed Diggs rap as early play Lafyette is different from Daveed Diggs MC of Clipping (or to a lesser extent Chris Jackson rap as George Washington is quite different from Chris Jackson rapping as Chris Jackson in Freestyle Love Supreme)

Edited by organizedkaos
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It reminds me of something similar, the Ann-Margret bit from Bye Bye Birdie that they showed in Mad Men. When I first saw that bit, not having seen Birdie, I thought it must've been down to Ann-Margret being gorgeous, because her singing voice was awful, but a friend pointed out that that was just how she sounded at the beginning, when she was a naive young groupie, and that when she reprises the song at the end of the film, the performance is much more polished and smooth, to represent her new-found growth and maturity. 

EDIT: Sorry, my point being that, very often, it takes a very skilful musician/singer to deliberately sing badly. Not saying that's necessarily what's going on with Hamilton, but it's possible.

Edited by Carbomb
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The stand-out musicals I've seen have been Waitress, Blood Brothers, (for the fifth time) and The Book of Mormon, Rocky Horror, and Sweeny Todd. I'm not usually a musicals guy, (fucking hate panto too) as I prefer my theatre physical or straight, but in the same way that I'm not a fan of most ska or reggae music, but like the odd song, some musicals blow me away. 

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