Marilyn and Ella

Synopsis

It’s 1955 and Marilyn Monroe is at the height of her fame. Despite this, she wants to be taken seriously as an artist, like the woman she most admires, jazz icon Ella Fitzgerald, who is also at the peak of her career. Even though she can’t quite believe her own success, Ella wants more too. She wants the kind of fame Marilyn has. She wants to be in the movies. But to break into Hollywood, she needs to meet the ‘right’ people like the producers and money-men who frequent the ‘living-room of the stars’ Mocambo night club. But Ella stands no chance of singing at the whites-only Mocambo... until Marilyn steps in and pulls strings like nobody else can! These two iconic women - both outsiders - come together in an evening of raw emotion and great songs. A true but forgotten moment of American showbiz history re-enacted live on stage.

Our Review:

22 February 2008

When Marilyn met Ella, not a lot happened. This does not prevent Bonnie Greer concocting a paper-thin, woefully un-theatrical and clumsily written two-hander based on the fact that Marilyn Monroe insisted on raising the colour bar at the Mocambo nightclub in Los Angeles in 1955 so that Ella Fitzgerald could sing there. She sat in the front row for the week-long engagement and took all the publicity flak in her stride and her shimmy.

To call this a musical drama (as Greer does) would be to insult more or less everyone from Wagner to Sandy Wilson. The first half is a pair of unrelated, intercutting monologues with Ella bemoaning her life on the road in a recording studio and Monroe writhing languorously around New York while wanting to be taken seriously: “I just wanted to tell you,” she shouts at an unseen Arthur Miller, “I did finish reading Ulysses.”

The point is that Marilyn was no superficial airhead and Ella not much...

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Latest User Review

Robert McGrail - 23 February 2008:

Dull, polemical, shallow and - I disagree its an awful performance from Morgan. ALL impersonation and no interpretation. But then what could anyone do with as cript and concept so poor. AVOID...

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