Recently I have been to The Curve Theatre, Leicester to see a LAOS production of ‘The Wedding Singer’ and The Young People Company’s’The Dreaming’.
The Wedding Singer
3.5 /5
The Wedding Singer was a brilliantly funny and entertaining love story of Robbie Hart and Julia Sullivan. The story follows the ups and downs of Robbie and Julia’s lives and how they end up realising their love for each other. Robbie, is a passionate singer in a trio called The Wedding Band and he is the life and soul of the party until he is left at the alter of his own wedding. He then becomes downhearted and loses his faith in love, but a moving and amusing duet of “Come out of the Dumpster” with Julia perks him up and he falls for her. But Julia is already engaged to businessman Glenn. Who will she choose?
The entire cast performed admirably, in particular, Craig Thurlow (Robbie) and Sarrah-Jane Barton (Julia) whose vocals and acting were both of a high standard and shared a noticeable chemistry on stage. Also, Beverley Hewitt (Robbie’s Grandma) provided some brilliant body-popping and disco dancing of a much younger person and Beverley had the audience in bits with witty remarks and her mannerisms.
All in all, it was a very solid performance with the central storyline of Robbie and Julia and the musical numbers all performed brilliantly. The only criticism I can say is that the minor storylines within the musical were not acted to the same standard as the main storyline and lacked chemistry probably due to the lack of time together on stage in comparison to Robbie and Julia.
The Dreaming
3.5 / 5
The Curve’s Young People Company performed “The Dreaming”, is a musical based on Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ but reset in the Edwardian period. Unlike “The Wedding Singer”, this performance was not in the main theatre but in a studio which was to full capacity (approx 200) and as I entered, I was met by naturalistic lights and scenery similar to a woodland.
There are many stories within this musical set in a forest. Jack goes into a forest to join the spirits and he is asked to prove himself to Angel by finding a herb in the Woods and when it is smeared on the eyes of someone that it is sleeping, when they awake the first thing they see, they will fall in love with it.
There is a comical mix up with the young lovers: David, Jennifer, Alexander and Charlotte with each of the men being tricked into loving with Jennifer who no-one loved before. Another victim of the herb was Sylvia who falls in love with Nick (who had been turned into a badger).
Nick was part of amateur acting group who were practising in the forest a play called “The Ballad of St George” which was largely unsuccessful and amusing.
These young actors performed their part superbly, I particularly enjoyed the 4 lovers and their laugh-out-loud debacles of love. However, the one thing I think that didn’t go as well as it could have, was the fact that there were a lot of spirits (dancers) and due to the fact that it was performed in a studio hindered the amount of movement each of them could make. But despite that, I loved the enclosed environment and when every member of the audience stood and applauded for 5 mins at least after the closing number by the amateur acting group, you felt goosebumps.
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