The West End revival of 42nd Street is a musical for the Strictly generation, says Viv Wilby
Category Archives: Musicals
Bebop à La La
Damien Chazelle’s La La Land has already made a splash at cinemas and on the awards circuit. Mostly Film’s resident grumpy jazzers, Martin and Sarah Slade, review the music, while self-confessed musical and Ryan Gosling aficionado Fiona Pleasance offers some thoughts on the film. Readers, be warned: mild SPOILERS follow.
Stormy Weather
Sarah Slade considers if Stormy Weather has weathered the storm.
There is a school of thought that maintains that musicals of the Hollywood Golden Age were at the forefront of social commentary. Look at Carousel, with its depiction of domestic violence, single parenthood and walking on through the wind and the rain. Or Oklahoma in the light of Judd’s mental illness. Let’s skip over the message behind Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and look at Showboat, which has actual people of colour singing songs about rivers and takes a sideways look the trials of being mixed-race in the Deep South.
All Singing! All Dancing!
Here at Mostly Film we were very excited to hear that La La Land, the new Emma Stone-Ryan Gosling movie directed by Damian Chazelle which opens the Venice Film Festival this week, is being sold as a “reinvention of the musical”. In celebration, Fiona Pleasance introduces a look at some of our favourites of the genre.
We Love 1986: Part 2
As MostlyFilm’s 1986 week draws to a close, five more of our contributors share their favourite filmic memories of the year that also brought the world Robert Pattinson, Lindsay Lohan, the Olsen twins and Megan Fox. No, we didn’t think all those people were the same age either.
If the shoe fits…
As Cinderella appears in UK cinemas, MostlyFilm contributors recommend their favourite slippers ‘n’ stepmothers.
Parade of evil
Liz Nickels explains why one of Hollywood’s best loved musicals has a dark side 
Continue reading Parade of evil
Fever Like I’ve Never, Ever Known
Laura Morgan emerges, blinking, from a Singalong screening of Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker.
Men for all Seasons
Jersey Boys is the latest musical theatre blockbuster to get the big screen treatment. Viv Wilby assesses Clint Eastwood’s take on this tale of crime and close-harmony singing.
So. Farewell then, Stephen Ward.
Stephen Ward, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical, opened with the usual fanfare just before Christmas, only to close four months later, dogged by lukewarm reviews and empty seats. Viv Wilby caught the show before it suffered the same fate as The Beautiful Game and Love Never Dies.
They’d already buried Stephen Ward before I got the chance to praise it. News broke last month that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical would close at the end of March after less than four months. I saw it in a half-empty theatre and the curtain has already come down for the last time. Continue reading So. Farewell then, Stephen Ward.
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