An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Critic rating
Reader rating
Dir: Kevin Tancharoen.
Cast: Kay Panabaker, Charles S Dutton, Bebe Neuwirth, Megan Mullally, Naturi Naughton, Kelsey Grammer, Paul McGill, Collins Pennie, Asher Book, Kherington Payne, Paul Iacono, Walter Perez, Kristy Flores, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle
Description: Principal Angela Simms presides over the High School for the Performing Arts in New York City, where the country's most naturally gifted artists, dancers, musicians and singers come to hone their skills. Students discover that nothing short of excellence will do during four years of trials and tribulations. Hopefuls push themselves to the limit to the delight and obvious envy of their classmates, while attempting to impress their demanding teachers.
Country: US. 2009. 107mins
Remember her name: Kherington Payne as Alice, one of the performing arts students
Quite why anyone decided to make another film based on Christopher Gore and Alan Parker’s exhilarating 1980 success is beyond understanding.
But it is still intriguing to see a group of unknown showbiz hopefuls playing unknown showbiz hopefuls at the New York High School of Performing Arts.
We’ll know in another few years who has succeeded, and it could be the very performers regretfully told they may not make it in the film. There are some bright youngsters spitting out some less than sparkling lines as they learn from veterans like Charles Dutton and Kelsey Grammer that celebrity doesn’t come all that easy, even nowadays.
The trouble is that apart from the first few sequences, and the usual end-of-term show (which, of course, has the audience of proud parents contributing a standing ovation), there is little to suggest the hard work everyone has to go through to succeed.
Instead, we have endless permutations of the personal lives of the participants. There’s Naturi Naughton as a pianist who suddenly bursts into song in the middle of classical practice and tries to persuade her father that she prefers pop to Beethoven (lucky Beethoven!).
There’s Collins Pennie as an actor who decides rapping is more like it as a career. And there’s Megan Mullally as a vocal instructor at the academy who vaguely regrets she left a singing career behind her and wows them all at a disco.
Elaborate dance routines and six new songs festoon the proceedings but you can’t help feeling that these young people are less interesting in their personal lives than as latent showbiz talent, and that director Kevin Tancharoen, making his feature debut, isn’t as good as Parker at swamping the clichés with camerawork and editing that douses them down
a bit.
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