I took advantage of a course in London to pay a visit to a show that had me intrigued... Almost all of us have seen, or know of, the mega-bucks version of Tolkein's story by Peter Jackson, and a large percentage of us were blown away by it. But in our age of stupendous special effects and CGI, I was fascinated to find out how they'd treated it on stage.From the moment I stepped into the auditorium of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, I was excited by the design of the stage. It has to be said the whole production was 'organic' in feel. The stage was a mass of tree roots and twisted vines, which spread out to cover the first row of boxes and up over the ceiling - a brilliant atmosphere.The staging was definitely the hero for me - every single scene was beautiful and full. The lighting was phenomenal and the action never stopped once for a scene change despite the scale of each different piece of set.Highlights were; the 'tree-ness' of Lothlorien (with huge great branches reaching down from the sky, spreading across the stage and gently rotating throughout the scene), the battle towards the end of the show (which used a combination of shadows, swords and projected video to present the melee of war) and the stunning end to act one as Gandalf faces off against the Balroc (which was a truly explosive event, and left the audience with their hair blown back from their faces, picking debris from their teeth!). Awesome!There was also some great flying work too. From the graceful elves hovering in and out of sight to some brilliant slow motion falling and even some underwater swimming! Really brilliant to see. I had a huge grin on my face watching it!
The weak point, for me, was the performances of a few of the principle players. Chief amongst them was the guy playing Gandalf. OK, I know we've all been spoilt by Sir Ian McKellen's performance (which was outstanding), but I still expect a character such as Gandalf to 'own' the stage whenever he's on. This guy was flighty and possibly had ants in his pants, as he kept dodging about during his dialogue and certainly didn't command the stage. It was from him that I became aware how much story they had to cram into 2 1/2 hours, just because he gabbled - sometimes unintelligibly.In the end, I still wouldn't have missed this opportunity to see such lavish production, and it din not disappoint from that perspective. If you're into the theatre - in particular aspects of staging, set design and lighting - you'd love it. But it didn't have the 'whole package' for me... or the bloke two rows behind me who kept complaining to his girlfriend!I don't think I'll buy the CD either. It's something I'd hesitate to call a musical in it's traditional sense. Certainly no one came out whistling any of the music. Very atmospheric, but no toe-tappers!
