Quadrophenia Sunderland Empire July 9 2009
So Jimmy goes to Brighton on the 5.15 and Laura reviews the show below.
Having never heard of the show and with a somewhat sketchy knowledge of “The Who”, it was totally on dad’s recommendation that I attended this one.
It made a welcome change to only have to travel five minutes down the road to the Sunderland Empire. I hadn’t been there since seeing Morrissey a year or two ago and it was nice to be back in the theatre. It brought back memories of seeing pantomimes when I was young, watching musicals after the stage was extended and chatting with Russell Brand after a comedy gig.
For an opening performance however (particularly one with the promise of two tickets for the price of one) the auditorium wasn’t so full. From what I could hear, a lot of the people around us were big “Who” fans or else fans of the film. Not knowing what to expect I settled back in my seat and awaited the show’s beginning.
After a series of odd sounds and snatches of conversation coming over the sound system (I don’t think they were part of the show) the curtain rose. I can only apologise as what followed still remains a complete mystery to me. The show was very difficult to follow owing partly to the show’s lack of content and largely to the performer’s poor delivery. It was near impossible to decipher what they were singing and their vocals in general weren’t as good as I’d hoped.
During the interval dad explained the story to me, (the little story there was that is) and he too commented on the poor performances. The second half was little better. The rest of the musical was presented through a series of unteligable musical numbers far too frequently interspersed with heavy rain sound effects which wouldn’t have been out of place in a low budget children’s television programme.
All in all dad and I were quite disappointed with this one. Perhaps it is a little harsh to fully blame the cast; I think the poor sound quality and the weak plot also didn’t help matters. Dad says he’d advise anybody interested to just buy the album rather than going to see the show.
ticket
flyer
Vintagerock's Weblog. 