Theatre Review: Never Forget
By Ross Levy at 5:49 pm on October 30th, 2009. Printer friendly version.
Everybody knows about Mamma Mia-right. Last year’s film version of the musical now celebrating 10 years in London’s West End quickly became one of the most successful films ever in the history of films, or something close to that. For months it reigned in the cinemas and has equalled what great success its stage show has done at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London.
Never Forget the Musical
There’s also been We Will Rock You. Eight years the show has now had at the Dominion Theatre in London and this year it has boasted what has been a marvellous yet sadly limited UK tour, the cities it has visited have been blessed with the show staying at their respective theatre for about a month!
On 3rd April this year at the Manchester Opera House, following an acclaimed West End stay at the Savoy Theatre the next band turned into musical started to hit the road running for a huge UK tour celebrating the music of…Take That.
The title: Never Forget.
With some fantastic special effects, including a curtain of rain that spells out Never Forget, this show is absolute dynamite, this obviously depending on your taste of music mind you. And your mind for a little bit of fun.
Telling the story of a Take That tribute band formed to win a competition we have all the members of the original band presented to us in one way or another in the show. Gary Barlow aka Ash Sherwood aka Mark Willshire accompanied by Jake Turner aka Robbie Williams aka Adam C Booth are the main characters we follow from the band in the story, a pretty obvious (some may say) yet decent enough one, whilst former-Brookie Philip Olivier gives the female audience something to drool over constantly with his performance of the member Howard or his actual character name Dirty Harry.
Meanwhilst, there are some great female performances from Aime Atkinson who plays the role of Chloe, Ash’s fiance whilst Kay Murphy plays the devilish Annie Borrowman. Aime, who won the Radio 2 Voice of Musical Theatre award in 2006 for The Cardiff International Festival, shines during her solo performance of Love Ain’t Here Anymore whilst Kay shows high-calibre performance skills in her main number, Once You’ve Tasted Love.
Some may complain that the story is obvious and the show is a plate of cheese however it is actually a sensational night out. Music is performed to a buzzing standard by the orchestra/band who are kept up-stage for the performance and shown occasionally whilst the songs are pretty well known. The most notable will evidently be Never Forget, Relight My Fire, A Million Love Songs, Could It Be Magic and Pray (All receiving whooping reactions from the sold out auditorium) yet some of the lesser known Take That hits are also showcased, Take That And Party and Once You’ve Tasted Love perhaps fresher than other songs to some. However, with Take That still very much a part of British music all the numbers are greeted with arousing reception not to mention the finale in which will continue to get everybody up on their feet-guaranteed.
Regardless of whether you are a fan of Take That or not Never Forget is a great night out. The fun-factor is extremely high and even though the musical may not be no Les Miserables of The Phantom Of The Opera, it sure proves to be quite the hit not only with the audience but with those upon stage. At the end performance the company generally seem delighted with the work they show and that really is plausible for what, for them, has been a relatively long tour.
Some may Pray the tour goes on forever.
(There had to be a pun somewhere!)
