ALICE WESSON

MY REVIEW


On the 27th February 2013, I went on a college trip to see a matinee performance of the musical 'Kiss Me Late', written by Cole Porter at the Old Vic Theatre in London.

I thought the show overall was very good, however it's not something I would rush out to see again.
It was a good interpretation of the show and I thoroughly enjoyed the revised songs 'Another Opening Another Show' and 'Too Darn Hot'. The scenery was simple but really well executed and lovely to look at. The costumes were lovely and true to the period, the only thing I had a problem with was a few of the performers.

The opening number was brilliant, starting A Capella with a faultless soloist, building up into a tremendous number with a strong chorus and great choreography.

Next introduced the lead characters Hannah Waddingham as Lilli Vanessi and Alex Bourne as Fred Graham. Both performers were as impressive as each other throughout the show, every song sang perfrectly which kept you wanting to hear more from them. I felt that Hannah however, playing Kate, stood out slightly more for me with her tremendous renditions of 'I Hate Men'.

There was a clear definition between the Taming of the Shrew and the antics that were going on backstage during the show. This was good as it could have been easy to get confused however they did not let that happen. Robert Jone's designs atmospherically evoke a tatty old touring theatre, just as they should! A genius design where all the sets were made of cloth hung from poles with a pattern on the back to represent what it was e.g a door, window and kitchen surface when they were inside Kate's house. This looked simple but impressive.

There were some real stand out characters and chorus members within this show, the Gangsters, lived up well to their comical roles. Leaving the audience wanting more, with their song ' Brush up your Shakespear'. Although they worked so hard on sounding like gangsters that a lot of the references during the song were lost due to terrible diction, which was a great shame. I felt that Adam Garcia the renowned tap dancer was nothing special which was a great shame. He danced to a click track during his large solo tap number. This was one part of the show I was really looking forward to, and felt slightly let down by the fact that it wasn't entirely him hitting all the beats during his dance, although it looked and sounded good, the click track was very noticeable. The number sung and danced by Jason PennyCooke 'Too Darn Hot' stole the show for me. It was my favourite number in the show, filled with great and lively choreography, which was very clean and well rehearsed. This number lifted the whole show, and started act two off with a bang.

Overall I thought the show was very good and interesting, there were some mediocre performances from the cast in their acting and singing, luckily Hannah Waddingham and Alex Bourne made up for these cast members. I thought it was a clever revival of the show that was written in 1948. However, they could have done more with it to make it a little more exciting. Some of the monologues and songs got a little bit tedious after a while, as if they were missing something. This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the show, however it's not a show that I would be rushing out to see again any time soon.