Will you ‘believe’ – really?
Yesterday at Prince of Egypt at the Dominion - our version of a late Christmas Panto family outing.
This was never going to be a go-to choice for me; I’m not a fan of the cartoon on which it’s based (or the myth on which the cartoon is based), but it’s a big budget musical and the cartoon has some good tunes in it. Sadly the musical has many others, which are less compelling.
The staging is very good, a few coup-de-theatres and a lot of very well choreographed action from some highly trained dancer/ acrobats.
A chariot race early on was excellently created and directed. Clever projection and good ‘string’ curtains moving to create effects allow deserts, temples, interiors and cities to spring onto the stage, and a very few blocks moved around by the cast create many different on-stage effects, including a royal barge.
It’s a great watch. But the principals are slightly less effective, singing and/ or acting being weak points in some (but by no means all).
The audience loved it, giving a full standing ovation, but, and I’m guessing, many were not regular theatre goers.
As a panto, well, (gags and slapstick and community singing apart) it delivered in spades – as a ‘West End Musical’ – well – less so.