Sunday, 25 January 2015

If you go down to the Swamp today....

If you go down to the swamp today - or any day there's a performance - you can be sure of two and a half hours of fantastic entertainment and the chance to see one of the UK's very best actresses live on stage.

As you can see from the tweets below the Scots recognise talent when they see it and are loving Faye's brilliant portrayal of Princess Fiona.

If you live anywhere near Aberdeen make sure you don't miss your chance to see this spectacular musical at Her Majesty's Theatre. BOOK TICKETS

The show is going down a strom in it's first foray north of the border, with an extra date being added to the schedule to cope with the overwhelming demand for tickets.

Check out the latest glowing review below written by Victoria Pease for STV ABERDEEN:

Dumping a swamp, two castles, a forest and a cathedral into His Majesty’s Theatre, Shrek the Musical has well and truly turned Aberdeen green.

With Thursday's bold and brash Scottish premiere kicking-off the show's UK tour, the stage version of the animated movie proved popular with an packed audience ready to to join the unlikely hero on his journey from lonely ogre to loveable hero.

For those who have loved the Scottish ogre since the original 2001 blockbuster, the musical is a faithful adaptation of the film with a large proportion of the dialogue and jokes word-perfect, which may disappoint some fans looking for a different perspective on the story.

Perhaps aimed more towards the children in the audience than the film's original overall appeal for all ages, the silly gags and slapstick evoked plenty of giggles from the younger members of the audience.

However adults aren't left out with some inspired set design, puppeteering and costumes to marvel at, all of which draw the audience into the fairytale town of Duloch, overseen by the villainous Lord Farquaard.

The story sees our hero Shrek trekking to the town unwillingly accompanied by Idriss Kargbo’s annoying talking Donkey in a bid to reclaim a swamp overrun with evicted fairytale characters.

He soon finds himself involved a quest to rescue a princess from a tower guarded by a dragon and return her to Farquaard, an act which offers the conniving Lord his only chance of becoming King.

But with a curse afflicting the radiant yet challenging Princess Fiona, a lovelorn dragon, and an ogre struggling to share his feelings, the road to a happy ending for the characters is a rocky one.

Dean Chisnall’s Shrek is a quieter, more reserved version of the brash hero and shared his softer side early on in the action, and although his Scottish accent wavered at times, he achieved a good balance between some impressive vocals alongside a twang of Scots during the songs, especially in act one’s concluding number Who I’d Be.

Princess Fiona is hammed up rather well by Faye Brookes, who brings a kookier side to the girl trapped in a curse, offering the audience an understanding of a character who has been locked away for years with only the ideology of a traditional happy ending for company.

This is perhaps most apparent in the performance of I Know It’s Today, using three actresses to depict Fiona’s optimism of her fairytale coming true fading with time.

However Gerard Carey completely stole the show as Lord Farquaad in what must be the most challenging stage role in the business, as he expertly commanded the stage despite his tiny stature with an almost pantomime-esque performance in numerous songs and dance numbers.

Perhaps the only character to really step outside the movie and into musical mode, the role is ramped up for laughs which came aplenty from a delighted audience and perhaps earned Carey the biggest cheers of the evening for every look of derision, feigned shock and scurry across the stage.

And as the musical’s multiple messages of not judging a book by its cover and being unafraid to show your true self comes to its emboldened conclusion, the cry that fairytales should be rewritten seems never more apparent as the three pigs dance alongside a cross dressing wolf, a fiery dragon and two lovestruck ogres in the finale performance of I’m a Believer.

For those who believe in fairytales, Shrek is a good old fashioned fun tale with a few twists but plenty of fire from the original film.


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