yet another stupid question??

[Guido Contini]

Posted: 8/21/04 at 6:58pm

ALW's "The Beautiful Game"...I kinda enjoy it. I'd enjoy feedback on your thoughts. Please share...tell me how much you love it...how much you hate it, whatever!

[gwapnisky]

Posted: 8/21/04 at 7:11pm

Elton doesn't always seem aware of the line between the eloquently simple and the clunky. But though Lloyd Webber, too, has his ordinary moments in The Beautiful Game, he not only extends his musical range but comes up with two or three lovely numbers, each packed with his trademark wistfulness. If there's a problem with their treatment of the football team that wins the cup in 1969, and falls apart afterwards, it is predictability... Yet there's plenty to admire at the Cambridge Theatre. We get a superb duet in which Walker's Mary and Dianne Pilkington as an unnamed Protestant sing of their love for "God's own country" and their sense of ancestral belonging, first separately, then in unknowing unison... Again, an even lovelier song called Our Kind of Love - "If this is what we're fighting for, I don't want to win" - is put across with restrained intensity by Hannah Waddingham as the America-bound Catholic. But Lloyd Webber's admirers will be equally taken with the inventive dissonance of his score when danger is in the air or, more happily, soccer is being celebrated. A pity the dance doesn't match the bang and clatter of the lads as they mime their "beautiful game

[QueenMuppet]

Posted: 8/21/04 at 8:14pm

I really enjoyed TBG as well (considering what Ben Elton came up with after that!)

I knew that the subject was going to be tough and just had the feeling it couldn't last for a long time in the West End. I was still disappointed to see it close after just a year's run. There are too many We Will Rock Yous and Mamma Mias around at the moment and I thought TBG was different. Yes, the lyrics to songs such as Don't Like You are painful but there are also the great lyrics to If This Is What We Are Fighting For. I also think ALW did a pretty good job with the music (I love the Overture, Deat Zone and Our Kind Of Love). It was also one of the few musicals that actually brought tears to my eyes... not too sure if this was necessarily the material or the AMAZING performance by Josie Walker.
Up to today, there are only two female voices that I enjoyed as much as hers. I saw TBG quite a few times and Josie gave everything all the time, I'd never seen anyone cry that hard on stage!

QM