Posts Tagged Musical
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July 12, 2018 by Simon Sweetman
Songs For Nobodies: Theatre
Songs For Nobodies Direction: Ross Gumbley (written by Joanna Murray-Smith) Circa Theatre; Circa One (July 7 – August 4) [Ali-Cat Productions Ltd] Ali Harper here performs ten roles, a dozen voices, as – variously – the famous singers Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Maria Callas. But she is also the “nobodies”, […]Archive
January 12, 2018 by Simon Sweetman
Coco: Film
Coco Directors: Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molna Pixar Animation Studios/Walt Disney Pictures “This is Pixar at its best – somehow both visually stunning and straightforward. There’s something deceptively dazzling about Pixar at its best. It’s a return too to the brand’s very best version of the storytelling about feelings (rather than just storying with feelings)…” I […]Archive
November 27, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
Peter Pan – The Pantomime: Theatre
Peter Pan – The Pantomime Direction: Susan Wilson (written by Pinky Agnew & Lorae Parry) Circa Theatre; Circa One (Nov 18 – Dec 23/Jan 2-13) The Circa Theatre end of year panto has been a mainstay across the last year – however last year’s romp through Jack And The Beanstalk felt phoned in, stale. The […]Archive
October 20, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
Opening Night: DVD
Opening Night Director: Isaac Rentz Wolfe Video If watching Topher Grace playing a failed Broadway performer-turned-stage-manager wrangling talent backstage for the titular opening night of a musical called “One Hit Wonderland” sounds like fun to you. Then I guess it will be. An eccentric cast (Rob Riggle in full-yell mode, Anne Heche looking bored and […]Archive
October 3, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 489
Shelly Manne, Plays Richard Rodgers: REX (1977) If I have a weakness – in a guilty-pleasure/Achilles heel sense – it is solo albums by drummers. I don’t just mean when the drummer is a bandleader (as Shelly Manne was) or when they’re a singer/songwriter too or multi-instrumentalist. Though bring all that on also. But if […]Archive
July 31, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
Short Story: My Westside Story
I remember thinking that people never really burst into song in real life – you know like in the musicals; in the movies…and it was at that exact point, thinking that, when my father just piped up, out of nowhere, “maria, Maria, MARIA!” each version of the name louder and longer than the one before […]Archive
June 30, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
Short Story: We MUST Be The EGGS
He can still recall the moment – the moment he knew when he’d fallen as far as he was supposed to fall. You never know – until you do. He remembers that too. Remembers thinking that he never expected to know that it was his time to stop falling, to get up, to pick himself […]Archive
February 24, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
La La Land: Film
La La Land Director: Damien Chazelle Black Label Media/Gilbert Films/Imposter Pictures If there is one thing the Academy loves it’s a film that celebrates Hollywood and the Hollywood Dream – so La La Land is up for a bunch of awards. Ludicrous really, and if it sweeps as many as predicted it’ll be like that […]Archive
January 5, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
Movies of My Life # 14: The Blues Brothers
I have had the double-pack DVD of The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000 on my shelf for quite a few years. I didn’t need Blues Brothers 2000 but it was cheaper to buy the double-pack than just the original movie… The Blues Brothers had a profound influence on me. It is possibly the movie […]Archive
August 21, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 125 The Musical Drama
Fair Warning – there may be some dodgy seventies lyrics in this story. The Musical Drama It never had a proper name and it was pretty bleak I got the idea in my head to write it when Negative Theatre passed through Wellington in 1979 There was a song I had written called Bloodnotes about […]Archive
June 6, 2016 by Simon Sweetman