Skip to main content

Mamma Mia! I Have a Dream review – no reality show has ever featured this much screaming

Fourteen overexcited hopefuls head to Greece to compete for West End roles in the Abba musical. It’s a wildly rushed, tension-free series that is never less than shrill

Maybe my mind periodically wipes itself of as many wearying memories as it can, but I don’t remember there being this much screaming the first time around. It is possible that there has never been this much screaming in any reality show. Mamma Mia! I Have a Dream comprises 14 young would-be musical theatre stars competing for the chance to make their debuts as Sophie or Sky in the long-running Abba-stuffed West End show, so brace yourselves. Zoe Ball is presenting, and it is like watching her herd cats.

The first time this kind of caper was attempted was way back, before Andrew Lloyd Webber became the sort of Tory peer who would fly in on his private plane to vote in favour of cutting tax credits, and John Barrowman was unproblematically everywhere. How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? hit our screens in 2006, with hundreds of hopefuls entering the competition to take on the lead role in Lloyd Webber’s stage revival of The Sound of Music. Negotiations with Scarlett Johansson for the part of nun-nanny had fallen through, leaving us with one of history’s most tantalising what-ifs. Anyway, Connie Fisher won and the whole thing was popular enough to spawn a similar hunt a year later for a star for Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (remember Lee Mead?) in Any Dream Will Do, followed by a Nancy and three Olivers for his revival of Oliver! in 2008’s I’d Do Anything, and a Dorothy for his Wizard of Oz in Over the Rainbow in 2010. All in all, one could surmise that Lloyd Webber musicals did very well from the BBC’s 10- to 13-week promotions for them, and that Graham Norton, who presented the lot without his enthusiasm flagging for a moment, should be studied by science as a potential source of perpetual energy.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/BUsKbQT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coronavirus live news: Brazil adds record 34,918 daily cases as infections surge in six US states

Beijing Covid-19 outbreak ‘extremely severe’; French police fire tear gas at healthcare protest; New Zealand cancels compassionate quarantine exceptions. Follow the latest updates Beijing travel restricted to tackle ‘extremely severe’ situation Brazil suffers record case increase Six US states see record case increases Covid-19 outbreaks in New Zealand and China highlight stark choices See all our coronavirus coverage 1.10am BST More on the rise in cases in the US now: Across the United States, 17 states saw new cases rise last week, according to a Reuters analysis. In Oklahoma, where President Donald Trump plans to hold an indoor campaign rally on Saturday, new cases rose 68%. Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday said officials were considering other, possibly outdoor, venues for the Tulsa event. The virus spreads far more efficiently in enclosed spaces. On Tuesday, Oklahoma health officials urged anyone attending the rally to get tested for the coronavirus before arrivi...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Rico Lewis helped harden up Manchester City’s treble challenge | Jamie Jackson

Guardiola believes advent of the teenage talent sowed seeds of change that turned his side into champions again Mid-January, the Etihad Campus. Before Tottenham’s visit a discontented Pep Guardiola is addressing a Manchester City team meeting that includes Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Ederson. The champions are in second place, eight points behind Arsenal, each having played 18 games. Performances have dipped and so has the attitude of his players. The final match before the World Cup was a 2-1 home defeat by Brentford . Since the tournament, City have beaten Leeds and Chelsea, drawn with Everton and lost their previous outing , 2-1 at Manchester United. Seven points from 15 is not championship-defending form and, when being knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton is factored in, Guardiola can see City’s campaign derailing. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/h8WjbMX
Post a Comment
Read more

Apartment 7A review – Rosemary’s Baby prequel is a vacant rehash

Strong performances from Julia Garner and Dianne Wiest can’t add enough weight to a pointless horror that fills in gaps we didn’t need filling in There wasn’t any urgent necessity to this April’s horror prequel The First Omen , a film that took us back to tell a tale we mostly knew already. Filling in the specifics of Damien’s backstory, before he was adopted by a couple unaware of his satanic conception, was not something even the most impassioned Omen fans were thirsting for but it came to be because of Disney’s Fox purchase and a greedy desire to stuff its streamer Hulu with content associated with known IP, the common contemporary reasoning that forces existence: could over should. But a strike-affected release schedule, and I would imagine some enthused test screenings, pushed it into cinemas instead and while it wasn’t without its problems, it was made with such visual flair and frightening inventiveness that it ultimately felt like a worthwhile revisit. Months later, the same ...
Post a Comment
Read more