Saturday Night

I promised to see shows and write about them here, to review the London theater scene. It's not clear yet that I am the person for this task.

They have made a musical out of the movie Saturday Night Fever. The music is by the Bee Gees who rescued their fading careers by writing music for this movie. The plus is that it is nice to go to a musical with so many familiar songs, including "Stayin' Alive," "You should be Dancing," "How deep is your love?" etc. The minus is that this stuff is all disco. In fact the whole show is simply about disco. How much interest can a person work up for disco?

The band appear to imagine themselves to be the most important part of the show and blast away as loud as they can. I told you I might not be the right person for this task. Really loud music makes me nauseous. The very miked and amplified singers didn't really manage to blast over the band.

This show is a vehicle for the leading man, in this case played by Adam Jon Fiorentino. It's a back breaker with almost non-stop singing and dancing. In a movie you get to rest between takes. Now John Travolta wasn't 19 either, but he managed to pass. This guy may have looked 19 when he started, but not any more. He looks at least 25 to me.

Is that important? Nah. If you love the Bee Gees and loud disco, you'll love this. It totally works as a musical.