Tonight's The Night - The Rod Stewart Musical 21st April - 26th April 2014
Milton Keynes Theatre

Ben Elton's Tonight's The Night rocked into MK theatre this week.  This all singing, all dancing jukebox musical showcases over twenty hits of the rock legend, Rod Stewart.

The story is of a shy, geeky mechanic from Detroit who sells his soul to the devil. Desperate to overcome his shyness, he sees this as the only way to win the heart of Mary (Jenna Lee-James) the girl he's fallen in love with.  The aptly named Stewart (Ben Heathcote) gets his wish when the devil swaps Rod Stewart's soul with his own and is transformed into a "wanna be" rock star, ready to take on the world.

He meets a leggy blonde bombshell promoter Baby Jane (Tiffany Graves) who takes him on tour bumping into another rocker, Stoner (Michael McKell) along the way.  McKell gives a faultless performance and shows impeccable timing to bring this Mick Jagger-esque character to life.  He was hilarious, bringing a comedic interlude to the show, which was very much appreciated by the audience. 

You will enjoy some of the most memorable songs by Rod Stewart, all performed brilliantly by the cast and backed by the fantastic rock band sat high in the rafters on stage - the sound is phenomenal!

The story loosely jogs on, fitting the hits in one after the other - at times the story is rather insignificant.  It is the music and performances by Heathcote and the exceptionally talented Jenna Lee-James that holds it all together, especially "Stay with Me" and "I Don't Want To Talk About It". 

It's a raucous, sexy production - the rockers amongst you will love it, as well as the ardent Rod Stewart fans.  It's all about the music and energy on the stage and the very talented cast doing justice to all the big songs throughout.  

The audience, like me however, were a little disappointed not to see Jade Ewen (one third of the multi-million selling pop group, Sugarbabes) on stage on the night as Dee Dee. It would have been the icing on the cake.

Even so, the reaction from the audience said it all as none of them could wait to don their paper sailor hats and sway rhythmically when the big moment arrived as "Sailing" closed the show.

As the encore began the audience jumped to their feet to dance and clap to a mega mix of classic hits, you could just tell that the majority of them had been itching to do all night!

The show grows on you, you won't go to see it for its story line - you will want to see it to listen to some hits of the mega star that is Rod Stewart performed with flair, heart...and Soul!

Lily B X

Robin Cousins' ICE 8th -12th April 2104 Milton Keynes Theatre

It's scary to think that Robin Cousins has been working "on ice" for nearly 50 years.  From little acorns great oaks grow...and that is so true of Cousins.

Starting from a local ice skating club as a youngster to go on to become the men's figure skating Olympic gold medal winner in 1980 and European Champion in the same year - you'd expect anything with Cousins name attached to it to be out of this world...and ICE is right up there.

Robin has said "skaters can move like no one else can, they can be motionless, yet travel at great speed.  We can soar across a frozen stage in ways a dancer can only dream of doing..."

To get this ice spectacular to the stage takes an amazing feat of engineering.  To produce the flawless platform for the ice skaters to perform, the Milton Keynes stage has to be totally transformed.

It's done with over 15km of pipework, filled with coolant which then spills over on to a matrix of rubber pipe that carries the fluid through the refrigeration units (and acts like a giant freezer) Water is then sprayed over the top of this mesh work and "hey presto" the perfect icy stage.  The whole process takes over 24 hours (non stop) to produce the finished product.

The music choice and Cousins' choreography works in perfect synergy and is absolutely spellbinding.  You will see some very talented figure skaters perform some of the most difficult moves on ice in such a restricted area, it's hard to believe how they do it! It will take your breath away, quite literally.

This production is slick, quick and totally fantastic - the whole cast of skaters are just amazing and this show is a spectacle not to be missed.

Enjoy!

Lily B X