BWW Reviews: GENESIS TO BROADWAY - Creatively Flawed

Fem Bellling, Andrew Dunne and musical director Warren Wills guide their audience on a journey from the beginning of time through varying musical styles and cultural influences leading to the great white way. The show provides few highlights with wills' arrangements and virtuoso accompaniment being one of them. Both Dunne and Belling are seasoned performers with fine voices, however, their harmonies are flawed, their movement awkward and  unfortunately for them Frank Howson's dialogue is limited and particularly cheesy. To compound these issues the sound was incomprehensible . How two microphones and a small band can pose an issue for any sound designer is beyond belief, yet it cut in and out all night and was at no moment ever truly balanced.

 

The premise of the piece is particularly interesting especially in Act II when the music became more familiar, yet if you're going to have a show start at the birth of music and work  towards the contemporary broadway stage why not go the whole way? Lloyd Webber and Sondheim were only lightly referenced and there was nothing sung post 1980's...surely something from Schwartz or a touch of Hairspray from Belling who was incidentally in the original West End cast would have rounded this show off far better.

 

There is no doubt that all three 

Performers on the stage as well as other band members; woodwind extraordinaire Lachlan Davidson and percussionist Glenn Marcus are all highly skilled professional performers, however, this show structurally and creatively falls far from the professional mark.

 

Genesis to Broadway

Chapel off Chapel

Tickets chapeloffchapel.com.au