Fela!

Synopsis

Fela! is about the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world o f Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti. Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), Fela! explores Kuti's controversial life as artist, political activist and revolutionary musician. The show is a hybrid of concert, dance and musical theater.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 17 November 2010

This intermittently startling, vigorously compiled but musically monotonous American import of an Afrobeat concert - the original off-Broadway show opened in 2008 and has played on Broadway for just over a year - comes complete with its original star, the eager but uncharismatic Sahr Ngaujah, a saxophone-dominated onstage blaring band of 12, and co-producing credits for Jay-Z and Will Smith.

So, what’s it doing at the National, exactly, apart from drawing a new audience, hopefully, for a couple of months? The story of Nigerian musician, hedonist and self-styled radical Fela Anikulapo-Kuti is haphazardly told, mostly in first person narration, in an Olivier auditorium packed to the max with posters, slogans, projected song lyrics and historical film footage, some of it genuinely disturbing when the military storm Fela’s compound and throw his mother out the window.

First, Fela welcomes us to his club, the Shrine, in Lagos, announcing his final concert. A slow start elides ...

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Latest User Review

Mateo - 1 August 2011:

Slow, repetitive, boring. Easily one of the poorest show I have ever seen at Sadler's...

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