Titanic The Musical Review
By Sioph LealTitanic the musical shows the final hours of the voyage on 14th April 1912 as the maiden voyage collided with an iceberg and sank ‘the sinkable ship.’ 1517 men, women and children lost their lives on the journey and the musical takes a look at lives of passengers on all classes, the difference of their journeys and how the crew navigated such a harrowing time.
This could have been a refreshing take, to see the crew's lives intertwined with the passengers but what this performance gave was absolutely nothing with the exception of two moments and three cast members. Having the crew take centre stage was promised in the opening number with heavy focus on Frederick Barrett (Adam Filipe) reporting to his first day of work. In a sea of mediocrity and bad performances Filipe shines as one of the strengths of the production but is criminally underutilised.
Many of the performers struggled with volume and finding life in their roles. Unlike Filipe, many of the cast were off-key and flat- notably Alice Beane (Bree Smith) and Charles Clarke (Matthew McDonald), whose characters were an annoyance devoid of personality which could have been forgiven, had their voices not been flat and off-key during the performance. They weren’t the only ones, the other characters except three, were lifeless and tedious making the night’s performance devoid of any personality. It seemed the tour was running on fumes and gave the impression it was ending soon (which was confirmed when we looked up the tour dates and had our suspicions confirmed). There was one moment where the audience refused to clap after a number except one person which made an already dull night awkward, as the rest of the audience laughed. It is an impressive feat to make the story of the Titanic boring but Titanic the musical tour did just that.
Out of the entire cast, only three actors carried the show and gave a performance that was full of life and could carry a tune. They put real effort into the night which is more than can be said for the rest of the cast. One of few highlights of the production was ‘The Proposal / The Night was Alive,’ performed by Filipe and Alistar Hill as Harold Bride. With both in perfect harmony, singing about human connection, it is the only glimpse of emotion of the entire show. Both Filipe and Hill brought some much-needed energy to the show, which only emphasised how lacklustre the rest of the cast was. The bland performance of the rest of the cast does not take away from Filipe or Hill’s rendition of ‘The Proposal / The Night was Alive,’ it only serves to highlight the wasted talent that this production had.
Another stand out performance was Barnaby Hughes, taking on twice the work as First Class Steward on A Deck Henry Etchees and third-class officer Herbert Pitman. As Henry Etchees, Hughes has a natural warmth and chemistry with the other actors as he flits between interacting between first class and second-class passengers. While Hughes’s talent is wasted, so is his voice as the overlapping polyphony is overused in this show and retracts from otherwise talented performers. Hughes shows a compassionate side to Etchees as he cares for his passengers until the very end. Once again, it is the rare human touch that this show was deeply deprived of.
Live shows can often be quite tricky to pull off, especially when the production is near the end of its touring run. Unfortunately, the Liverpool Empire did not do well in terms of controlling the audiences. When there was the rare, captivating performance or staging, this audience was disruptive with multiple phones going off, people leaving abruptly and consistent problems with the Empire’s sound system. In the second act, the sound system issues had been resolved but the audience did not, which, in part, can be blamed on the lifeless show they were watching.
The story struggled with its identity and main characters that lacked any charm with performances that had run out of energy, nearing the end of the tour and the night's performance. Most of the cast had little effort and ones that had talent and gave it their all were underutilised.
If Titanic the Musical tour comes to your city, do yourself a favour and miss it. If you do wish to brave these waters, check the remaining dates here.