Knight N wrote:TheyCallMeMrGlass wrote:I am seeing Batman Live tomorrow morning.
I know Diane has seen it in manchester but has anyone else been to see this at the O2, this week? How about you Knight N?
Mr G: I'm also seeing it at the O2 tomorrow but in the evening. I can't believe it will be the second time we're both at the same venue and we miss each other.
However, like you we've also pa*d for the tickets because my wife b*ght these as a birthday present for me. She's therefore, splashed out on Gotham City Seats and the 'big kid' in me is very excited
Despite some of the reviews a friend of mine saw it in Manchester and absolutely loved it. He didn't want to give anything away but said being a Batman fan it was definitely something I would like hence I going into it with an open mind. I think Raj101 has seen it and enjoyed it to.
Have a great time Mr G (and anyone else that's seeing the show over the weekend). I look forward to your review(s) and posting my own afterwards.
N
I had a magnificent time...at this evening show, the show you were at! Yeah I know, you wont believe this...but I actually saw this twice today...I am sorry I did not try to find you but I had a fiercely determined mindset to ensure I had the best seats in the house and enjoy this spectacular show. You see, this morning's show was a catastrophe. It was diabolical. And that was largely because our "best seats in the house" , the most expensive tickets which I purchased several months ago, turned out to be the WORST seats in the whole arena. In fact all of the Gotham seats (all being the most expensive) are the worst seats in the arena. For concerts, they are the best. But for live action stage show performances especially those which utilises a large background projection integrating with the action on stage, the best seats are actually the aisles facing directly towards of stage at the REAR section of seats NOT the front floor level ones.
I know this because I sat there in the second half of the show and also at the front rows too. When you are too near, you cannot grasp the full scope of the spectacle because you are just too damn near and plus the stage is raised high. When you are at the sides its 10 times worse because the visual perception becomes a complete mess with the whole canvas being split into pieces that are wide apart from each other. Effectively, what you see is akin to a painting being sliced into pieces and moved apart from each other. You would sit there craning your neck looking left and right as if watching a tennis match trying to comprehend whats going on the background screen on the left and whats happening on the stage on the right. You feel like you're some f**king meerkat. This is how I felt this morning for the first half of the show. But from front on viewing angle, you see the whole canvas as a whole and in Batman Live's case, its a majestic one.
So I came back a second time...for FREE because I phoned O2 to complain and ask them (well practically demanded) to please let me see this show again TONIGHT at a seat with a view that is worthy of the price I pa*d. The show ends tomorrow, I am a batman fan, I waited for this show for a long time, I b*ght the Batman Live t shirt, I could tell how great this show will be from a better viewing angle and so I MUST see it again tonight, properly, before it dissappears for good tomorrow as its the last day of its London run. On the phone they told me to email them, so i did so straight away. I went to play cricket in the meantime but while I was off the field I got a call back from them informing me that tickets are ready for collection at the O2 for this evening performance. I thanked them. I felt relieved, not lucky, as this was a compensation. My friend who came with me this morning, could not come again tonight so I ended up taking my mum who felt very happy for this unexpected outing.
On arrival it turned out the tickets were for the side isles. Aaarggghh. I was not going to settle for this or I swear I will show them what chaos is and its nothing compared to what the Joker can do! I pa*d for best seats and I will get them so I ignored the directions of the stewards and sat our asses on second row from the rear facing the stage front on. The shocking thing is all of these rows were empty. Yet all of the sides were packed, not fully but nearly so. Why? Are they cheaper perhaps?
Before I get on to my thoughts of the show, I need to point something else out. This mornings's show had 3 pyrotechinic failures including the fire appearing on the balloon at the climax. The other 2 failures were the red bullets firing from the Batmobile and Harley;s bazooca missle launch at the balloon. One juggler dropped his skittle. And Batman's cape got hooked onto his grapple gun making him look like an idiot as he fires his grapple hook gun and flies up ward with his cape draping over his face. All of these failures happened in this morning's show yet this evening, everything worked perfectly. Another big difference was the audience vibe. Initially there were some claps for the circus acts but for the rest of the show it was a somewhat dead audience. All of this was in stark contrast to this evening's show, where the audience whooped and clapped at many key moments. It was very jazzy audience. I wonder if this audience vibe made the whole stage crew and cast, up their game???
On with the review then...if I havent put you to sleep yet! I shall refer to my second viewing as this morning's experience was a shambles.
So on my second viewing, this was a joyous and triumphant spectacle of visual spendour, action and sound. The integration of the stage action and on screen images were superbly done. Transitions between set pieces were smooth, and use of forced perspective (which can only be experienced front on) was excellent though a little flawed in some key scenes. But what really elevated this whole show was the magnificent soundtrack. Oh man, this was one of the best super hero soundtracks I've had the pleasure of hearing. Certainly better than all of this year's superhero movie soundtracks (except for maybe X-Men:FC). It was truely Batman music in an epic way. I am actually upset because I know this soundtrack will never be released and I so much want it. At least i have this video to remind me of a fragment of it.
http://www.gothamknightsonline.com/?p=15780
Each character had their own piece of music all of which I noticed had elements borrowed from most of the on screen Batman interpretations from the classic 1990s animated series, to some of Danny Elfman's work on the Burton films, some from Joel Schoemacher campy ones and even some from Zimmer/Shore's Dark Knight score. Very deliberate nods to all of these films. Yet, despite these borrowed elements, the whole sound track was still an original and fantastic composition. I had to find out who the composer is. He's a British composer named James Brett, whose most recogniseable work was on BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs. I loved the soundtrack to that series too! His name will now be on my radar in future.
My favourite characters in the show were Catwoman, Alfred, and best of all by a long way, was Harley Quinn. Harley's performance was so identical to the 90s animated series character, that I wondered if it was the same actress but it couldnt be, she would be so much older. Robin was very much the Robin we expect.
Action highlight moments were Batman's entrances, the Batmobile, Batman and Catwoman aerial fight over the projected rooftop towers of Gotham, Catwoman and Robin's fight scenes against multiple villains and plenty more.
Now to the negatives of the show. There are a few! One of the two most glaring negatives is the Joker. This character is supposed to be a scene stealer and dominated the second half but the actor had the worse voice I ever heard for the Joker. He sounded like Noddy from Sade with a very bad hangover. The delivery of his lines were terrible. It didnt help that the dialogue was equally bad, lacking any kind of wit and class that makes the universally slated Batman and Robin film's dialogue sound classy. but Harley Quinn compensated for this, even though her dialogue was not clever either, her delivery made it sound delicious.
The other glaring negative is unfortunately...Bruce Wayne/Batman. In every film/tv interpretation, even in the campy 60s series, Bruce Wayne is a suave character with hint of playboy mischief. Here, he was a sarcastic and sometimes whiney git. His voice and tone was all wrong for this character. As Batman, it was worse, he was still a whiney git, complaining all the time. Jesus, what went wrong here? At least the spectacle of the show dissipated my dissapointment but not quite enough. I would have been more satisfied if he never opened his mouth and just move around looking like Batman. But when is his mouth opens my cool illusion of Batman's awesomeness is immediately shattered!
The above 2 are serious negatives and in normal circumstances could have been a deal breaker but the overwhelming presentation of the show pumped my adrenaline and made me feel like a kid...well almost, there was a little kid waving his illuminated blue light toy in front of me that made me want to do something to the little blighter that would have had me locked up in Arkam Asylum.
The circus act was pretty phoney but enjoyable. The Joker's magic acts were fun too but it made no sense to the story. In fact the story was pretty weak too but forgiveable.
If only the dialogue could have been more wittier/smarter and Batman/Joker were played more true to their characters with better voices, then this show would have been trully brilliant.
But overall I had such a blast and would rate the experience 8/10.
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