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Articles
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Karaoke TheatreDateline: 17th February, 2002I suppose it was The Rocky Horror Show that began it. Audiences turned up to performances (stage and film versions), dressed in appropriate costumes (why is it so many men want to dress in women's underwear, especially basques?), carrying (and waving) their newspapers and all the paraphernalia associated with the show. Then came the film Sing-Along-A Sound of Music, which has achieved almost cult status, with fancy dress, props, competitions, and, of course, on-screen lyrics. We've seen it at two theatres locally and the houses were packed. Now we have a Sing-Along-A Joseph (see our news story), with Donny Osmond reprising the role he played for countless years in the USA. Given that almost every junior school and most secondary schools in the country have performed the show, this bids fair to being another smash-hit, cult0stle film which will run and run and run. It set me thinking. Why should the legitimate theatre lose out? Why shouldn't it be part of this new phenomenon? Imagine a Speak-Along-A Richard III, based on the Olivier version? Look at the opportunities for dressing up - the white make-up, the hunched back, the withered arm -and imagine the effect of a few hundred people chorusing "Now is the win-ter of our dis-con-tent"! Brilliant! Or what about Henry V? We could all charge around the auditorium pretending we're soldiers at Agincourt. Or Romeo and Juliet. Think about it: all the women in the audience chorusing "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" Or what about all the opportunities to chat up members of the opposite sex in the scene where the lovers meet for the first time? "Hand to hand is holy palmer's kiss." The more I think about it, the more I like it! I suppose we'd have to pass on the Scottish play, although the chance to dress up as witches or for all the audience to chorus "The devil damn thee black, thou cream faced loon!" is very attractive. All those groups of three, scattered all over the theatre, chanting "Double, double, toil and trouble".... There's got to be some company out there willing to try it! Articles Indices:
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