Admit Your Guilty Pleasures

I figured this would be a fun topic to discuss. Some musicals and even composers have been maligned by us musical theatre aficianados but we all know that we have some works that we can't help but love. So, what are some of your favorite guilty pleasure musicals?

For me, I can't help but love the Bernadette Peters cast recording of Song and Dance. I read some people complaining about it for various reasons, but since I'm not familiar with the original Marti Webb version and Marti Webb's version doesn't have "Unexpected Song" I never bothered to listen to it to compare. As a figure skating, the ALW variations on the Theme of Paganini is sort of a staple and of course I love that version of the score, which I know is sacrilege and I'd to see the ballet to that.

I also can't help but LOVE the concept of Song and Dance and the story behind it with Act 1 being about the woman and her relationships told entirely through song and Act 2 being about one of the men going dealing with his issues that led to problems with the woman in Act 1 told through dance.

It seems like the critics massacred it though:

Reviewing the London production, the Financial Times theatre critic Michael Coveney claimed, "It is a long time since I have sat through a more ostentatious, less theatrically coherent evening."

In Frank Rich's New York Times review of the Broadway production, he wrote: "Miss Peters is more than talented: As an actress, singer, comedienne and all-around warming presence, she has no peer in the musical theater right now. In her half of Song & Dance, she works so hard you'd think she were pleading for mercy before a firing squad. Yet for all the vocal virtuosity, tempestuous fits and husky-toned charm she brings to her one-woman musical marathon, we never care if her character lives or dies.."

John Simon, in The New York Magazine, noted that the unseen men seemed "nebulous and unreal, so too, does the seen woman", and in the Dance half, "things go from bad to worse." However, he wrote that "Miss Peters is an unimpeachable peach of a performer who does so much for the top half of this double bill as to warrant its immediate rechristening 'Song of Bernadette'. She not only sings, acts, and (in the bottom half) dances to perfection, she also, superlatively, 'is' "

I don't really like Sarah Brightman in the filmed version of the stage production, but I'm glad to at least be able to experience it.

You know how it goes. There are some things you're told not to like or you know are kind of bad but you can't help but love anyway. Like I dislike the musical Legally Blonde, but I admit "So Much Better" is a song I enjoy and have listened to repeatedly. It's like that Buzzfeed article I once read where somebody ranked Princess holiday movies by Hallmark from best to worst because she can't help but enjoy them even though she talks about how bad they are.

I am a quintessential lover of all things kitsch and camp, so a large amount of what I love qualifies as what most would call a "guilty pleasure", though I don't feel guilty at all about loving them. My biggest love of such category is definitely Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, however. I really hope we get a Revival because I haven't yet been able to see it on Broadway in full live glory yet. Ditto for Xanadu as well.

I absolutely loved the most recent revival of Jekyll & Hyde with Constantine Maroulis and Deborah Cox. That show as a whole is a guilty pleasure of mine, but that production in particular ha.

I adore The Wedding Singer. It's based on the only good Adam Sandler comedy, and they kept Sandler far far away from the stage adaptation, so it was able to work.

I legitimately enjoy a good portion of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, to the extent that I was sad to see "Juicy!" be cut, and also I really, really loved the Broadway version of the chocolate room. It was such a unique, interesting way to present that set, and there were other flashes of color and style (the red on blue was gorgeous) that were super intriguing but unfortunately nothing came at all close to that moment.

LizzieCurry said: "Why feel guilty about pleasures?"

I think this is exactly the right answer.

The only things I could possibly describe as "guilty pleasures" are certain forms of entertainment that I know are offensive to others, though I find them enjoyable. I'm thinking, for instance, of certain episodes of Seth Macfarlane's shows, which veer into racism but which I still may find funny. I feel a little bit of what might be called guilt about that.

So, to give a theater-related answer: maybe "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" from Avenue Q, for exactly the same reasons.

Bat Boy! Well, most of it...

Anything done by Frank Wildhorn - lol