Knightsofbroadway.com Website Review

Broadway Musical and Top Forty Music An*lysis by William S. Deaver These two shows, while released a few years apart from each other, had much in common. Both had distinctly Pop-flavored scores and beautifully stylized visuals. Both were retellings of the lives of famous historical figures that had almost nothing to do with the reality of those historical figures’ lives, and both were able to justify that on the grounds that the shows themselves were all about the importance and validity of imagination and fantasy. And both were blatantly scorned by critics and yet succeeded in not only gaining given their extremely severe Post-Sondheim songwriting style, I can’t really imagine their work fitting in well with this elemental, shamelessly emotionalistic material. I was skeptical at first that Barlow, a Pop singer-songwriter and the longtime frontman of the band Take That, could summon up the necessary atmospheric richness this material requires, but da*ned if he didn’t pull it off; the score is absolutely lovely and for the most part perfectly suited to the needs of the story. True, there is an occasional moment where the Pop style feels out of place, such as “Something About This Night”, which is catchy but feels more like an Eighties Pop hit than an integrated song in this particular musical. But the ballads “Neverland”, “All That Matters”, “What You Mean to Me”, and “When Your Feet Don’t Touch the Ground” are marvelously atmospheric and do full justice to the emotional power of the story. The thrilling credo of imagination “Believe”, the defiant anthem that closes Act One, “Stronger”, and the joyous ensemble number “Play”, are some of the most stirring up-tempo numbers of the decade. And the sprightly tango “We Own the Night” and the sunny guitar ballad “We’re All Made of Stars”, if perhaps a bit less substantial, are also delightful. The visuals were also stunning, with a series of exquisite stage tableaux culminating in the leading lady’s symbolic flight off to