BANDSTAND (Broadway/Stream Theatre)****

 

By Imogen

Link: https://www.stream.theatre/home

Available until: Further livestreams on Sunday 8^th and Wednesday 11^th November, all at 7.30pm

Trigger warning: War, death, possible terrible writing.

Bandstand was first performed in 2015 and opened on Broadway in 2017. The music was composed by Richard Oberacker and he wrote the book and lyrics with Robert Taylor. It is a very good musical but it isn’t anything like the pop style that is usually used now, like in Six or School of Rock (which actually has a very similar plot.) It isn’t even like Waitress which is more of a throwback to older styles but it also kind of isn’t because Sara Bareilles (who wrote the music and lyrics for Waitress as everyone except my granny knows) has a very individual style as a composer.

The musical Bandstand reminds me of most is On the Town by Leonard Bernstein which opened in 1944. It’s not exactly Bernstein but it totally sounds like something from that sort of era even though it is actually set after 1944. It is set after World War II which ended in 1945. But Bandstand doesn’t feel like a copy, it feels like a really good musical which needs to come to the West End.

It’s about lots of soldiers who come back from the war. They don’t all know each other but one of them is called Donny and he wants to start a band and he knows someone who knows someone else and it’s like that. There’s a competition for bands and Donny wants to win it so that’s a bit like School of Rock but it’s veterans not schoolkids.

Donny had a friend called Michael who died in the war and he promised he would visit Michael’s wife if anything happened to him which obviously it did so he meets Michael’s wife Julia. Julia is good at singing and writing songs so she gets involved too.

It is a good story. It isn’t totally original but that’s ok. I think the music is really good and there are some really epic dance routines. A lot of modern musicals don’t have dance routines like this and I think they should do more dancing so it’s nice that Bandstand does.

Some things are annoying like Julia’s clothes but she’s probably wearing 1940s fashion and it’s not her fault it was horrible. But she still looked very beautiful.  It’s also quite weird that Julia kind of expected to be walked home, now if a boy walks you home he wants sex. I wouldn’t let a boy walk me home in case he accidently met my family but I let boys walk me to my classes if it’s part of my plan. So it seems odd when Julia tells Donny to walk her home when they’re not a couple and they’re not going to have sex but if you set a musical in the past you’ve kind of got to do all the social stuff from that era and it was obviously just something men did then and they didn’t expect anything in return.

I really like all the main characters. They can all act and sing really well and they can play their characters’ instruments really well too. Corey Cott is gorgeous as Danny. He is a really nice respectful guy and he sings and plays the piano really well. James Nathan Hopkins makes Jimmy really geeky and Brandon J. Ellis seems really relaxed as Davy but maybe there’s more to him than that. Joey Pero who plays Nick is really good too.

Laura Osnes plays Julia and her role is really hard because she has to sing in so many styles but she can sing anything and she’s a really good dancer. And if she can wear those awful clothes and still look good she can probably do anything. Julia seems quite helpless to start with but it’s like the band makes her feel more confident and they are nice to her and they respect her talent. Beth Leaval is quite annoying as Julia’s mum June Adams but she’s a mum so she’s got to be annoying really.