第四十二街 42nd Street (同場加映)

42nd Street review

If you like tap dancing then you will love this show!  The story itself is about the production of a musical (a musical-within-a-musical) where a young girl takes the leading role and is under pressure.  The plot is a bit light so you don't have to think too much, but this also make the show feel a little bit longer than it needs to be.  I got a little bit bored with the story, BUT it was made up for by all the fabulous tap dancing. I have never seen so many people dancing all together, in step, in time, with very complicated maneuvers in my entire life. It was great!

And the girl Clare Halse (who played the character named Peggy Sawyer) was amazing! She was beautiful, bubbly, and tap danced like the wind.  I know the cast changes from time to time but if you have the chance to see her, she was a good dancer and also had a very special singing voice.  OK, I think I'm in love now.  Miss Halse, I don't know how long you spent studying tap dancing, but on behalf of the thousands of people who have seen the show, it was totally worth it!

Something else I liked about this musical is that although the plot was not very suspenseful or thick with thought-provoking life-pondering moments, it was light-hearted and fun.  This musical is not going to make you sad. It doesn't have any sappy love story or any tragic ending.  It's happy all the way through so it will definitely cheer you up like it cheered me up (even though I'm quite often a very-slightly-angry person).

The venue was good, ticket issuance was fast.  I had a champagne at intermission which cost about 12 pounds.  A little pricey but it helped me relax.  I sat in row D at the left section of the stalls with an aisle seat.  The legroom was a little cramped in this theater (I understand that the theater itself is more than 200 years old) but having an aisle seat helped a lot because I could stretch out my legs.  The orchestra pit was visible. I liked it.  In terms of storyline, I would rank this musical below that of Young Frankenstein, but I put this one at the very top of my list of musicals to see if you like dancing.  I would watch this one again just to see the amazing tap dancing.