By Emma
Available until: Saturday 6th
February
I always thought the Showstoppers were
good but I think this might be their best ever. It was one of my dream
Showstopper line ups, the audience came up with a great story idea and I really
enjoyed the music.
In case you don’t know the format, the
Showstoppers improvise musicals from suggestions from the audience. They
usually do this in a theatre but obviously they haven’t been able to do that so
they’ve been doing livestreams with suggestions coming from youtube chat. The
audience get to suggest things like the main story of the musical, the title of
the musical (this is chosen at the start of Act 2), new plot ideas, locations
for scenes and lots of songs in different musical styles.
There are lots of members of the Showstoppers team but only four of them appear in every live show. Tonight’s quartet are Ruth Bratt, Joshua C. Jackson, Ali James and Adam Meggido. We also got to hear from two more Showstoppers, Andrew Pugsley was hosting and Pippa Evans was in charge of the Showstoppers youtube chat profile. Pippa chooses suggestions from the chat and sends them to Andrew who either tells the Showstoppers what to do or gives the Showstoppers a choice of four.
The music is provided by pianist
Duncan Walsh Atkins and percussionist Alex Atty. They perform in masks and
drumming and playing the piano are quite physical so having reduced oxygen is
probably really difficult but they keep going. Duncan and Alex usually start
off the songs and do all the chords and the singers have to sing to fit in with
that.
There were four suggestions given for
the title and they definitely chose my favourite. The Showstoppers immediately
created characters for themselves and started saying things about their
characters and each other’s characters and the other Showstoppers pick up on
this and run with it. One thing they seem to like doing is giving each other
really… unusual names though one of them got off very lightly this time.
Adam started off the musical and it
really was a great start to the show. There are a lot of spoken scenes as well
as the songs and the Showstoppers are really good at those too. Some of the
scenes are so funny and others are really moving, Adam had a speech near the
end that nearly broke me.
I don’t want to spoil it by telling
you the whole story but it’s about a group of people who used to know each
other really well but then they stop hanging out and they haven’t had much
contact at all. But suddenly they’re thrown together and there are happy
memories (there’s a whole brilliant flashback scene with lots of different
songs in) but there’s also a bit of an acrimonious history. This is all done
really well, sometimes they tell great stories, sometimes they drop hints which
might be picked up later in the musical. There’s a really good scene where Ruth
and Ali are complimenting each other and you just know the insults will come
out soon. There’s another really good scene where the audience ask all the
characters to come up with an idea why they think the four of them aren’t
friends anymore. There are also some big revelations at the end which I didn’t
see coming and it was great!
There are lots of different styles
used. One is (or was/will be) at the Noel Coward Theatre and the other one
was/will be on at the Sondheim Theatre. Then there’s one which I think used to
be on at the Prince Edward Theatre but I’m not sure because I get it mixed up
with another show which has almost the same title, just one word different.
They also did a Eurovision song and I could actually see the song winning? They
did a sea shanty too. I know they’ve got really big in lockdown but actually
the only ones I’ve heard were on Showstoppers! I’m not that crazy about them
but Adam took this one in a really emotional direction.
The Showstoppers are so talented. They
are obviously good at improvising songs but they are talented in all sorts of
ways. Adam is so good at instantly involving you in the story and he always
gives the stories really emotional moments. Joshua has an especially beautiful
voice and he’s got this vulnerable thing going on so you sympathise with his
characters straight away. Ruth is so versatile vocally, she can sing anything
and she’s hilarious. Ali is another really excellent singer and performer, she
has an amazing voice and it’s so distinctive and individual. There is such a
big level of trust between them too, they can take the story anywhere and the
others are instantly right with them.
The end was really emotional. I loved
it but I was sad when it ended, I want a sequel! I feel so invested in the
characters and the world is so lucky I don’t write fanfiction anymore or I
would have been right on it!
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