How did Matilda compare to a disney musical?

It's a million times better than any Disney musical.

It's one of the best musicals written in the last decade.

Matilda was brilliant and I still feel sad whenever I round the corner of 44th at Shubert Alley. The wit and emotion of the lyrics worked beautifully with the charming score and you felt great when you left the theatre. This show was my introduction to Tim Minchin and I subsequently bought tickets to Groundhog Day (I'd never even seen the movie) based solely on my love for Matilda. In the end, I saw both shows multiple times before they closed and will likely buy a ticket to anything Tim Minchin does in the future.

Have to agree with everyone - Matilda is a very special show! Thoughtfully written with smart and witty lyrics, combining both the harsh sense of real life with the imagination of a child, and totally taken on a magical journey as an adult or child. It has been running in London for 8 years now and held the most wins of the Olivier Awards for a Musical - until this year with Hamilton now tying it.

Matilda is on a different level with its themes, storytelling, lyrics, choreography, and direction. I still don't think it's fully appreciated for just how brilliant and poignant those lyrics are, especially in these times.

Brooks0214 said: "I enjoyed Matilda. I thought it was very fun and I do love the music. But for me the storyline could’ve been a million times better! Excited to see how the movie musical version will turn out tough"

Write to the Roald Dahl Estate. The only real complaint with the storytelling of Matilda is that I think all the interruptions with Matilda telling the story to the librarian stopped the show cold and gave it some pacing issues. I think there were some really beautiful parts in those sequences, especially the scene between the girl and her father (you know who they are), but I could feel some people getting restless after like the third library story. Maybe they could have used some of those parts to include more of the magic to wow audiences or something. I know that's not in the book and it's mostly in the movie, but I overheard some people in the audience grumbling how they didn't explain the magic or used it enough in the musical like in the movie because they grew up with the movie and didn't expect the show to be closer to the book than the movie.

Can you come up with a better book than Roald Dahl? The musical is a really close adaptation of Dahl's book except they added the library storytelling scenes and smaller things to add focus on scenes like songs. I'd argue Matilda's story is better than all of the new musicals that came out this season with the exception of The Band's Visit which some people complained about having no plot even though it was much more of a character-driven story.

Updated On: 6/18/18 at 08:30 PM

see my point. Because something is written for children. Does not mean it has to be bland or just sugar. It can actually be well written. I love Matilda to death. The music by tim minchin was superior on every level.to not just disney musicals but to many tony winning musicals i just hate it when people say its for kids its supposed to simplistic.



ps it is interesting that mary Poppins was not from a cartoon and is the best Disney musical

Updated On: 6/18/18 at 11:05 PM

Hated Matilda. Hated the kids, poor diction couldn't understand a word they said. Loved the set though. Disney's productions haven't had as many children as Matilda had and doesn't get as dark (I didn't see the Bway prod of Mary Poppins but the London prod was darker than most Disney musicals).

While I stayed for Matilda, I would have left at intermission had we not paid full price for the tickets. Hoped it would get better, it didn't. With Disney, you pretty much know what you're getting.

Why are you automatically comparing Matilda to Disney musicals???

Oh, wait… I bet ALL CHILDREN’S LITERATURE CHARACTERS LOOK ALIKE TO YOU. That is clearly GENRE BIAS and you, sir are such a GENREIST!

And while we’re on the subject, I am sick to death of 3-Ds taking roles away from Flats. Why are actors of depth ALWAYS cast before two-dimensional actors??? Illustrated characters have ALWAYS been portrayed by actors from the three-dimensional community, AND THAT IS DEPTH WASHING!

There are plenty of Flats ready and willing to play the roles written for them. Flats have been used as pieces of scenery for far too long!!!

...end of rant #stopriggingflats

BuddyStarr said: "Hated Matilda. Hated the kids, poor diction couldn't understand a word they said. Loved the set though. Disney's productions haven't had as many children as Matilda had and doesn't get as dark (I didn't see the Bway prod of Mary Poppins but the London prod was darker than most Disney musicals).

While I stayed for Matilda, I would have left at intermission had we not paid full price for the tickets. Hoped it would get better, it didn't. With Disney, you pretty much know what you're getting."

I actually found Matilda pretty creative and entertaining, but I do agree, the dialogue was often times difficult to understand. Certainly it's reflective of where the story takes place and the characters themselves who live there, but there were many times I just didn't pull up what was being sung or said.

That being said, I would say it was better than anything I've seen from Disney. Disney is basically theme park productions on steroids. But not even the strongest brand of steroids. There was really nothing in Aladdin on Broadway that wowed me. In fact, I thought the Genie at Disney's California Adventure was just as good as the guy on Broadway. I didn't think the woman playing Jasmine was as good as the one I saw at Disneyland. I thought the staging at Disneyland was just as interesting in its own way.

Disney has billions of dollars to put into these shows, and now that they have become a part of Broadway, I would expect them to wow me with anything they put on Broadway. And if they can't, I may as well just see their incarnations at the parks.

It is a shame that the sound appears to have been an ongoing problem in the Broadway production.

I did not experience this in the West End or during the tour stops in Toronto and Cincinnati other than moments where the music is fast, making it a challenge to keep up with the lyrics even though the enunciation was clear. I find this to be true of many musicals.

However, I do not believe it was often a lack of diction/elocution. The children constantly worked with vocal coaches to avoid issues. Listen to them in other venues (like Matilda on the Tony Awards or Broadway productions before, during, and after Matilda) and they speak and sing clearly.

A potentially controversial move was made for Broadway audiences after the first year when cast members were directed to reduce but not eliminate the British accents and change some of the words, allegedly to make it easier for audience members to understand. I believe this reduction was a mistake, but admittedly I often spend summers in London and throughout the UK, so I have had time to grow accustomed to hearing differences in daily life, a much greater disparity than one might hear in films or in TV series like Downton Abbey.

As noted in my previous post, the abundance of positive themes creatively communicated in spite of a darker (but in my opinion essential) tone places Matilda on a higher level, but Disney still has its place and may (for better or worse) be viewed as more “family-friendly” by many.

Updated On: 6/19/18 at 01:00 PM

I didn't like the changes in Matilda's accent either. I preferred the original Matilda accent they had on Broadway. I think what hurts with the enunciation issue is that some people really do have problems when people speak in accents. Plus, the American children were not speaking in their natural accents unlike the British counterparts and had to learn it and be consistently coached. Add the fast-paced lyrics and dancing where the kids are trying to keep up with the rhythm and do all that physical work and the sound design issues at the Shubert and you have people who seriously may not have caught the lyrics and possibly some of the dialogue.