Something a little different than my usual concert reviews,
but this certainly counts as some sort of music event, so I thought I’d review it
nonetheless! Like a few other events I’ve attended recently, this was another
that fell into my hands last minute, but I’d be lying if I hadn’t been umming
and ahhing about going for months. The Muppets are without a doubt one of the
most iconic of pop culture icons and if you can’t say you’re an avid fan of
Kermit et al, I’m afraid we can’t be friends.
I’d opted for the matinee performance, so arrived at an O2
full of a younger crowd than that of the shows I was used to going to. The kids
were getting a bit edgy as the show had a delayed start, but soon quietened as
the lights went down and the first of the Muppets came on stage.
Immediately, I was enthralled by how it was done. There was
no hiding that the Muppets were in fact puppets (rumour has it crossed with
mops – that’s how they got their names) as the puppeteers, sometimes two per
Muppet, rolled across the stage on small sliding platforms, dressed in black so
they’d be less noticeable, but very obviously there. I thought this was great.
Unlike on TV or in the movies, we actually got to see the fantastic actors who
made the magic come alive. Interestingly, the screens were very obvious in
their cutting out of these actors, so from further away than I was, you only
would have been able to see the torsos of the puppets, much like on TV.
The performance was an interesting mix of characters
chatting on stage about putting on ‘Muppets Take The O2’, super short skits,
and some recognisable songs. Even for those of us who hadn’t seen the Muppets
in decades, the characters are so cross-generational that it made perfect sense
for a 50 year old to be enjoying it just as much as a 5 year old.
The show started the way it should – with the opening theme
sung by all the Muppets in their little cubby holes. Hearing them burst out
with “It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights” brought a
nostalgic tear to my eye. In the first few skits, we were re-introduced to
beloved characters like Miss Piggy, appalled the entire show was not solely
about her; Kermit and Fozzie taking a road trip together; and Rowlf the Dog
singing his way through the Tube map. This certainly was a ‘Made for the UK’
show.
It was where we had a bit more meat (no pun intended) that
the show became more enjoyable. Take Pigs
In Space, where Miss Piggy and pals, plus special guest Peter Davison aka
the Fifth Doctor, played with a regeneration machine turning one of the pigs
into various iterations of Doctor Who. The guests were well used but I felt the
Saturday showings had slimmer pickings – more on that later.
Kermit came back on stage for a quick dance to Happy Feet, and then we had the slightly
bizarre occurrence of actor Anthony Head reading Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud for a few moments – what? Turns out
this was all to be interrupted by Pepe the King Prawn, who is undoubtedly one
of the Muppets most enjoyable characters.
I very much enjoyed the Croakapella
segment, mainly because Kermit’s nephew Robin is an incredibly cute puppet,
as I was with Muppstream which played
Netflix style trailers on the screens above the stage, including The Walking Bread with the Swedish Chef,
and Frogglebox. We finished Act I
with a few songs from Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem including Can You Picture That? (which I have
since discovered is a Muppets original) and The Lumineers Ho Hey.
Act II got off to a good start with a cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody feat various chickens
and Animal frantically searching for his Mama. This was followed by the fun but
quite out of place Boo Danube – yes,
boo, as in ghosts. In fact, there wasn’t really much coherence to the show
itself, with skit after skit and very little of a storyline going between them.
I reckon it would have been a more enjoyable show had that been the case.
You can’t really go wrong with Muppet Labs, and Dr Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker
introduced us to the Cloud, and what a scary place it really can be. The screens
then showed Fozzie Bear running around backstage in an attempt to make it on
time to break the Guinness World Record for most jokes told in two minutes
(spoiler alert: he didn’t) made all the better by four kazoo-ing penguins
helping to build the suspense; followed by an aptly timed football joke given
England’s sad loss in the World Cup Semi-Finals a few days earlier.
Another highlight was the next scene with the Swedish Chef
and guest star comedian Adam Hills who gave us a tutorial on how to make haggis
with various IKEA-sounding ingredients and physically shoving oats down a
sheeps mouth given it all has to end up in the stomach. Quite amusing, with
Adam himself almost cracking up a few times.
Gonzo made a brief appearance on stage to do some magic, but
it was the next section that I think most of us had been waiting for – Mahna Mahna. The characters scanned the crowd
to see if the song could be made better with any pop stars waiting in the
audience, and lo and behold, Steps were on hand to do just that. Frankly talent
I think that was a bit wasted considering all they had to do was scream ‘MAHNA
MAHNA’ into a microphone. Nevertheless, last nights guest to fill this spot was
Kylie Minogue, which I think would have dramatically increased the star power.
Finally, the show came to an end with Miss Piggy’s rendition
of Adele’s Hello, which involved her
being flung from side to side by enthusiastic backup dancers; and the whole
crew coming back together to help a certain frog with a banjo sing Rainbow Connection. What a cute way to
end. Was The Muppets Take The O2 a perfect show? Absolutely not – the scenes
were somewhat disjointed and set changes not seamless leading to awkward
moments behind skits. It certainly could have been a lot smoother. Would I go
again? Probably not – I think you’d get a better experience from watching them
off YouTube, and at least the disjointed nature would make more sense as you
move from video to video. Nonetheless, one has to try these things to see if
they’re good, and I can for sure tell you I would have had a bad case of FOMO
had I not gone!
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