Is a feelgood jukebox musical the absolute best medium to tell a story about domestic abuse? Put crudely, that is the problem at the heart of big-budget global premiere...Don’t get me wrong: it’s an entertaining night, brilliantly performed.
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What a pity, then, that this musical never fully sparks into life...Yet the material surprisingly lacks rigour, too often staying in soft-focus when a more forensic examination is required...
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Despite the show’s creative pedigree, with Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd at the helm and a book by The Mountain-top writer Katori Hall, nothing about the production is particularly interesting or innovative. It’s a standard bio-musical...
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"Is a feelgood jukebox musical the absolute best medium to tell a story about domestic abuse? Put crudely, that is the problem at the heart of big-budget global premiere ‘Tina'. The erstwhile Anna Mae Bullock’s eventful life and beloved back catalogue are perfect subjects for adaptation. But too often Phyllida Lloyd’s production struggles to make a sensitive synthesis of the two...Lloyd directs fluidly and at a pace, but there is, also, a weird feeling of it being clogged with ephemera."
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The problem for me is that, at least for the first act which charts her relationship with Ike, what we actually witness is a strong woman being brought down by multiple acts of violence.
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[The] greatest hits should satisfy the Tina superfans, but there’s an unresolved tension here between producing a genuinely satisfying musical drama, and just surrendering to a great night out. This mould-breaking artist deserves more.
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Simply the best way to tell the story of Tina Turner...I thought I knew Tina’s story but, after she leaves Ike, it gets even more interesting. This musical tells it like it is.
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Phyllida Lloyd’s musical is a heady celebration of triumph over adversity...As bio-musicals go, this is as good as it gets.
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