Musicals

I have a strange relationship with musicals, both stage and film. There are several movie musicals that I would watch over and over again, often involving nuns or wizards or St Louis. I generally find out if they're on over Christmas then invite myself over to Mum and Dad's to watch them (I may have mentioned MuleBoy's hatred of this sort of thing before). There are several stage musicals that I have seen over and over again too and would still do so now - Guys and Dolls is one that I've seen roughly about 6 or 7 times, whether amateur, school or professional shows. But I am not very good at forging relationships with new musicals. Big Sis, after unsuccessfully asking me to listen to Rent, used an almost osmotic practice by playing it continuously so that I was humming it all the time and had to finally listen to it to find out what the words were. I had Wicked in my flat for ages before giving it back to Dad without having listened to it at all as it just felt too much like hard work. Maybe it's the packaging, or the fact that listening to a story on CD is too much like hard work. I think the former might be the key however, because make something look like the trashiest piece of naff and I will desire to watch it with every particle of my being.

I have craved High School Musical since I saw an advert for it sometime last year. I thought it would be the sort of thing that Big Sis would enjoy and bought it for her for Christmas. The fact that it's a film and not on CD probably helps, although I wonder whether I would have been more into Wicked if Dad had told me the plot: witches + high school = camp extravaganza. However, after watching it last night (I figured that buying it for someone for Christmas and then asking to borrow it six months later is a decent grace period), I couldn't help but be disappointed. I don't know about you, but when I watch a musical I expect decent songs and decent singers. And maybe some sincerity, at some point. However, I was confronted with this:



Now, they can sing, don't get me wrong, there's a tune and everything. But Jeezy Chreezy! It's so plastic. And all the singers sound like this, like they've somehow had their throats coated in plastic. Also, that girl has that expression for the whole film and how would you not run away if the boy started doing that face right in front of yours? Oh, and the other thing; she's a genius (hence the book reading at the beginning of the clip). I slap my forehead with my palm and go and lie down somewhere annoyed at the plot that involves a jock and a geek discovering their love for singing together and uniting a divided school. Then, I come into work and root through You Tube to find a clip of a film that was the sort of thing I was hoping for. Obviously as High School Musical was Disney, I couldn't really expect the underage sex, sexual experimentation and cross-dressing, but, oh, the music. Seriously, if you like musicals and people who can sing, hunt this down (as I plan to do in my lunch break tomorrow). Even Sondheim makes an appearance. It shares at least one thing with HSM, though. Its name is pretty much an "it does exactly what it says on the tin" type of dealio. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you Camp: