Carousel

Synopsis

The tale of the inhabitants of a New England fishing town. Romantic couple, comedy pair, wise old woman and a villain make up the main characters. Songs include You'll Never Walk Alone, June is Busting Out all Over and If I Loved You. Based on the play Liliom by Ferenc Molnar as adapted by Benjamin F Glaser.

Our Review:

22 November 2010

Roll up, roll up for an emotional ride on the Carousel.

Thom Sutherland brings New England to the intimate setting of the Broadway Studio Theatre Catford with his production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's doomed love story of carousel barker Billy Bigalow and mill worker Julie Jordan.

Sutherland retains material that is often cut which gives a pleasing holistic feel to the piece, making sense of all the musical numbers. The small cast, beautifully simple open set design and two piano accompaniment means the spotlight is on the quality of the acting, american accents, dance and singing. The cast delivers superbly on every aspect, singing with harmonious enthusiasm, executing Ewan Jones’ demanding choreography and acting performances far superior to those seen in the recent West End version of the same piece.

Undoubtedly a challenging and demanding piece, due to the accents, emotional content, especially act two when the emotionally deficient Billy de...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

James - 28 November 2010:

I saw the West End production of Carousel in 2008 and it left me cold - I didn't connect with any of the characters and I felt like it was defending domestic violence. As a result, I nearly didn't go and see this, but I'm really glad I did. This is a fairly large studio theatre, and as a result the cast can move around and it enables some lovely dance numbers. The songs are lovely, and beauifully sung (true, two of the women struggle a bit in the highest part of their range, but I'd swap that any day for the over-done vibrato of Silber and Garrett that we got in the West End), especially by the men, and the characters were very believable and seemed totally "real". A beautiful and touching production, highly recommended....

Read more and add your own review