Mad About The Musicals at Parr Hall Warrington Review
Mad About The Musicals
Parr Hall, Warrington
5 May 2016
Reviewed by Linzi Davies
Despite living very locally, it was my first visit to The Parr Hall. On arrival into Warrington, on-street parking was plentiful, although word of warning this only kicks in at 6:30pm so if you were thinking of eating before a show then one of the nearby pay and display would be better. I collected our tickets quickly and entered the seating area, which consisted of approximately 30 rows of 30 fold up chairs which were not the most comfortable. We were on row F and as we were all on the same level, I was hoping that I didn’t get anybody too tall in front of me! The stage is raised above floor though so pretty much every seat had a good view. The venue wasn’t full but a decent sized crowd were in attendance for this foray into the world of musicals.
Overall the show was very good, Gareth Gates was the star and shone with a flawless performance in all the songs he sang. In my opinion he has become very musical theatre now but that’s obviously were his strengths lie. His right hand man was Michael Courtney, who devised and produces the ensemble. Courtney was jovial in his compering and his voice was also extremely strong, although he did recognise his limitations and sought assistance where required. The males were joined by three females, who wore a wide variety of dresses throughout the evening. Kerry O’Dowd of the voice was just amazing and deserves a special mention.
The show was celebrating its tenth anniversary and for me the first half, included too many songs that I wasn’t familiar with, an opinion that was echoed on talking to other people during the interval. The close of the first half was the jukebox musical, We Will Rock You, one of my all favourites and this led fantastically into the second half where the hits got bigger and the notes longer, especially in, “Anything you can do, I can do better”. Most of the tunes were much more recognisable after the break and there was a deserved ovation at the end for the performers.
I feel with the amount of amazing musicals to choose from, some bankers for me where nowhere near the stage but the ones that were sang were enjoyable, polished and extremely well received.
Rating: 4/5
For more information and tour dates click here.
For more information about shows at the Parr Hall visit www.pyramidparrhall.com.
Pyramid & Parr Hall, Cultural Quarter, Palmyra Square South, Warrington, WA1 1BL | 01925 442884
