Showbiz Stocking Stuffers

Seeing as though the Festive Season is fast approaching, I thought I’d run through some recent Cd and DVD releases which actors and show biz fans might find appropriate as stocking stuffers. 

 Seeing as though the Festive Season is fast approaching, I thought I’d run through some recent Cd and DVD releases which actors and show biz fans might find appropriate as stocking stuffers. Some of these are available locally, but, as most people who follow theatre related acquisitions know, they’re always available through sites such as Amazon.
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA – LIVE AT ROYAL ALBERT HALL (DVD and CD)  No doubt arriving for release just before Xmas, this is the theatrical present of the season. Captured over two performances at the Royal Albert Hall, this celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Phantom really pulls out all the stops. The filming of it is unbeatable and it must be noted here that this is not a concert version but the show itself restaged at the Royal Albert with three times the cast size and more special effects and whizzbangery than you will ever get in the theatre. This is the ultimate way to preserve a great show for posterity and also removes all memories of the below par film version of a few years back. 
The mastermind behind it of course is Cameron Mackintosh who clearly wanted to give Phantom a very different celebration to the recent 25th Anniversary of Les Mis – which is whole different type of experience. Making it a theatre piece instead of a concert in one of the world’s greatest concert arenas has its own challenges and add to that filming it for theatrical and DVD release and you have an almost impossible task. The remarkable thing is that is all works like a dream, some of the backdrops are projected which dont show up as well on blu ray DVD, but this is a minor problem in three hours of luxurious theatrical viewing and featuring arguably the three best performances ever given of Phantom, Christine and Raoul by Ramin Karimloo, Sierra Boggess (both fresh from the cast of Love Never Dies) and Hadley Fraser. The final sequence between these three is quite breathtaking and director Laurence Connor has given it an added edge and greater depth which is true of the whole production. There is much at stake here and it reinforces how strong and remarkable the original Phantom was and of course still is.
The finale with members of the best of the Phantom casts is just pure theatre heaven, we have four of the greatest Phantoms namely Colm Wilkinson, Peter Roback, John Owen Jones and Anthony Warlow singing with Sarah Brightman with a special guest appearance by Michael Crawford. (I have no idea why there was no publicity given to Warlow’s very substantial appearance here by the Australian press-shame!) It’s quite an extravanganza and for theatre lovers should be top of the list for Xmas.
Note: The DVD includes a two minute trailer of Love Never Dies featuring the Australian cast. It looks sensationally filmed and is advertised as coming in Blu Ray, DVD and at the Cinema. (Question – will, as with this recent Phantom it screen in the cinemas while the same cast is playing the show nightly in Sydney at the Capitol???!!!) 

  
WEST SIDE STORY – 50th Anniversary Blu Ray  So one of the greatest of film versions of Broadway musicals turned 50 a few weeks ago and, to celebrate, there is a new blu ray edition of the movie on the market, which is just totally super. The disc isn’t overloaded with extras (thankfully) as the multitude of docos on the making of the movie are still readily available on other releases. What is extra here is pretty special, namely Stephen Sondheim giving a blow by blow description and history of each song and how it came about. He discusses the way the movie switched ‘Krupke’ and ‘Cool’ around and added the guys to ‘America’ (huge improvements which have never been added to revivals of the show, but we may see these now that the conservative Arthur Laurents is dead, who didn’t allow these changes).
There will be those who complain that the movie is dated and to a large extent that is true, but this is still, for me, the best interpretation of the text and director Robert Wise opened it out better than anyone else of the era could have done (observe the wonderful view over New York in the opening, which would later inspire his opening of the movie of The Sound of Music). The colours and texture of the blu ray disc are unequalled, it never looked as good as this at the cinemas and the sound is spectacular.
An interesting sideline:- Everyone knows very few of these actors used their real voices to sing the songs (Marni Nixon for Natalie Wood, Jim Bryant for Richard Beymer). But a little known fact is that when Marni Nixon was in the studio one day recording Maria’s tracks for the “Quintet”, the girl singing Anita was sick (Betty Wand I believe), so Marni put on her best PR accent and and sang Anita’s lines as well as Maria’s in this song. Think about that next time you watch the movie or listen to the soundtrack.
BETTY BLUE EYES – CD release  It has taken way too long for this original London cast recording of the Stiles and Drewe (Mary Poppins) musical version of the comedy classic “A Private Function”to be released. Its sad that while waiting for the release of the CD, the show has closed, a victim of the economic downturn in the west end. This is a charming”little”musical, very much in the style of the sort of musicals that drew producer Cameron Mackintosh into the theatre as a child (ie The Boy Friend, Salad Days) The score is full of what I would call jolly show tunes,melodious and fun and great numbers for large choruses. It seems almost unbelievable that a musical produced with such precision by our greatest living producer and with such a strong british theme (post war rationing and the hoarding of pig meat to help celebrate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth)should fail to fire on the west end and says a lot about the fact that theatreland in the west end is all about bus tours and Dirty Dancing type shows these days.CD is recorded live during five performances  and this really works for this recording The show also features a great liftable solo song for woman ‘Nobody’, sung here by the wonderful Sarah Lancashire
The cast album may not take its place amongst the great show music albums, but there are some  fun songs and a reminder that a tuneful rhyming show song never goes amiss. Here is a 3 min preview of the show:- 

  
Here’s a brief rundown of a few others that I have mentioned here before:-
Actors wanting to audition for the local production of THE ADDAMS FAMILY should listen to the broadway cast album. This is far from a great score, but not an embarassment by any means, there are some fun gaggy ditties that will mean more if you love Nathan Lane and like the original “Addams” stories…….HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS is about to lose their leading man (Daniel Radcliffe) but this CD is a good momento of his high energy performance that carries more of the complete score than any previous recordings of this wonderful classic show… LES MISERABLES 25th ANNIVERSARY is one of the great concert DVDs and with the exception of the below par Nick Jonas as Marius, the cast is unbeatable and is the best celebration of this great show I have ever seen and is superbly captured and filmed giving the viewer a better view than anyone could ever have managed in the theatre. This is the best it gets!