This Friday we went to see “Beauty and the Beast” Musical at London Palladium.
The tickets said that the show starts at 19:30, so I expected it to start around 19:45. But when we arrived at 19:25 they were already ushering everyone inside. And the show started just in time.
First thing I was impresed with is the actor that played Gascone. The guy had huge biceps, just like in the cartoon. Did they audition actors based on their bicep size? Did he had to go through specific kind of training for the role? Of course everyone remembers Christian Bale and Joaquin Phoenix for their transformations, but I didn’t expect something like that from a musical.
Belle’s role seemed very challenging to me as well. She has to act, she has to sing pretty difficult parts (I have zero understanding in music and singing, they just seemed difficult to me), and in addition, she also has to be able to dance can-can with others.
There were a lot of kids at the show. After all, it’s a Disney musical, right? But I’m not sure they much into can-can. And some other themes, like Lumiere’s infidelity or Madame de la Grande Bouche exposing herself playfully.
They invested a lot into different accents. Babette is clearly French, while Mrs. Potts and Cogsworth are very much British.
There’s a great tradition of selling icecream during the entr’acte in the UK. There’s usually a queue, and we end up picking between the flavours that are left. This time we decided to use the opportunity and order it ahead of time, so we get what we want. But how do we tell which order is ours? Turns out they just leave everything on the bar counter, with receipts telling which is which. Relying on the fact that nobody would steal someone else icecream.
Musical uses flashlights for some of its effects. You get a bright flash at the very beginning, when prince transforms. At the end of the musical there is another set of flashes when the prince transforms back. Some girl cried “Jeeesus”, in a very British tone. Don’t remember when I laughed so hard the last time.
Overall, it was absolutely spectacular. Maybe not as inventive as the Lion King musical, but somewhat more impressive in some aspects, like the pink curtain falling during “Be Our Guest” or the mug dance of “Gaston”.
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