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Andy Moss as Sam and Sarah Harding as Molly in the most iconic image from Ghost Ghost
The New Alexandra Theatre
**** IN
1990 when Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore took
to their dual pottery wheel sessions in the film
Ghost,
no one could have expected that the movie’s blend of comedy, romance and
supernatural thrills would have come to achieve the iconic status it
has. With Whoopi Goldberg's also picking up an
Oscar-for her performance as the psychic Oda Mae the challenge of
creating a musical to augment this kind of heritage might be a
theatrical blessing or a curse. In the right hands, this tale of ghostly love
could have been spectacular but with the film being able to access a
whole range of special effects to convince us of the spirit world, the
limitations of the stage and a touring show is another matter. Without
some of those effects what we are left with is a kind of well-produced
singing Randall and Hopkirk. The story is of Molly, a potter and her boyfriend
Sam a banker, who live together in New York. One night Sam is wrongfully
killed so is now trapped in some sort of limbo as a ghost. Through the
spiritual help of medium Oda Mae he solves his own murder from the
comfort of the after world and in turn saves Molly from the harm of his
villainous work colleague Carl. In the role of Molly is Sarah Harding, former
Girls Al
To be honest the songs created for the show by
the unlikely pairing of Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard hardly have any
notable or contemporary melodic depth for anyone to hide behind. Often
two chord rock riffs gave rise to some dubious `city type office worker’
dance routines. Andy Moss as Sam also worked hard with the
limited material and was pleasant, but dancing on a couch and shaking
his rear cheekily (no pun intended) at Molly as a sign of cute love
seemed tacky against that of Swayze’s sultry memory.
The pinnacle vocal
standard is achieved by Jacqui Dubois in her portrayal of Oda Mae.
During one of the most accomplished songs of the musical,
I’m Outta here,
she raises the vocal and performance bar for four minutes to a standard
that the whole show should have had throughout. It is rather tiring though, that writers consider
it fitting in a lot of musicals to go `full gospel’ whenever any black
woman with a soul voice turns up. Dubois certainly felt the most
comfortable in her role and to watch. Sam Ferriday as the nasty Carl had
what seemed to be one of the better voices but with only a few moments
to shine hardly had time to make a contribution. What’s missing in this
production is sweet romance. Instead the show gives this away to slick
dance routines, precise staging, FX lighting and a few magical tricks.
Considering the power of the Righteous Brothers classic song which
features in the original film and likewise here, the new songs feel like
cheap make dos. With Stewart writing some of the most powerful and
romantic pop songs of the nineties like
Why and
Sweet Dreams
there seems little effort to create anything memorable here to add to
what is one of the most emotive movies of its time. You ultimately come
away humming the tune of Unchained
Melody, mildly satisfied yet feeling a
little chilled, not with the supernatural but at the missed opportunity
here. In the end, fans of the film and the cast gave a rapturous
applause. There were spookily though quite a few empty seats on the
night but perhaps they were filled by other worldly types and I just
couldn’t see them. To 24-09-16 Jeff Grant 19-09-16
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oud
member, who recently seems to have taken an internet beating for her
performance. However Molly is not really a central character in the
story being unable to revive poor old Sam, but Harding did enough to
bring her own role to life. Her voice is more pop than musical and has a
nice tone when singing within her range; she seemed to enjoy the role
and did not let anyone down.