My sister sings Whitney Houston in the shower, in bed, while I’m trying to watch TV. I know what you’re thinking. Everyone belts ‘And I will always love you’ deafeningly around their house. But my little sister can actually sing. So last night, we took ourselves off to Bristol Hippodrome to see The Bodyguard, which our parents had bought us tickets for for Christmas. We were shocked into realising the show had started by the sound of a gunshot, and the first scene opened. It was very shortly followed by a big song, and the show was well and truly underway. For my sister and I, we were most anticipating whether Alexandra Burke’s singing would do Whitney Houston’s voice justice. After the opening song was over, we both agreed she was doing well. But there were many more challenging songs she was yet to tackle. The play itself was obviously an adapted version of the film, with scenes removed for obvious reasons. They also tweaked some details within scenes too, for example; the date which Rachel Marron and Frank Farmer went on involved them both singing karaoke, whereas in the film this hadn’t happened. But this scene added some brilliant comedy. Additionally, Frank’s parents had died in the play, and so when they went to his parents’ home, it was just Frank, Fletcher, Rachel, and of course Nicki, Rachel’s sister. But this didn’t matter. |
The stage and set were also done very cleverly, using the screens to frame scenes, and create the feeling of smaller rooms or more intimate situations. In terms of props, it was very simple, but in terms of costume changes for Alexandra Birke particularly, I have no idea how she managed to achieve so many so quickly.
My sister remarked at Birke sounded like Rachel in the film when she spoke and, considering Birke is British, I had to agree that she had done very well. Occasionally (from where we were sat in the upper circle a few rows from the back) some of the actors’ dialogues were hard to make out. I couldn’t tell whether that was the acoustics or the actors, but for the most part it wasn’t a problem.
The songs in this musical ranged from extremely simple – Nicki alone on the stage, no props, no fancy outfit, for example – to hugely glitzy and glamorous – Rachel performing in a sequin covered dress with backing dancers and singers, with a bit of flamenco and salsa thrown in too for added wow. My sister and I concluded that Birke had done incredibly from a singing point of view, paying amazing homage to the young Whitney Houston and her talent. Right from the 2008 X Factor we knew that Alexandra Birke was talented, but this was a whole new challenge which she rose to and owned.
The show ended (after the last scene) with a dance involving the entire cast (no more than twenty I would say) which even included some solo lines from some unlikely characters, which was brilliantly funny. No big Houston hits were spared.
As you can imagine, everyone left the theatre singing Whitney Houston songs, with I Wanna Dance With Somebody being played all through the Hippodrome as we left! And outside too!