Mamma Mia! the Musical, Kuala Lumpur

Watched Ip Man on Tuesday with Heng and Shawn. Great man-to-man hand-to-hand action scenes, thought General Miura looked like Wentworth Miller of the Prison Break fame, and a fairly interesting background story of Bruce Lee’s master.

Shockingly enough I was also stopped by the ticket collector and asked for my IC WTF. Apparently I don’t look 20..

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On the morning of Christmas at about 30 minutes past midnight, I picked Heng up and we went to Shawn’s house on the pretext of eating the leftovers of the party he had at his godmother’s house earlier the day before wtf.

Shawn watched wrestling, and as I was up to my neck with work from HS, with the laptop I brought along, did some work while Heng engrossed himself with the computer upstairs. We were waiting for Wai Hong to come to start our feast, but in the end he FFKed, so we waited till Shawn was done with watching wrestling on TV before we started on our culinary leftovers – which consist of lamb and pasta.

Later on as Shawn and Heng were channel-surfing, we ended up watching The Money Pit starring an incredibly young Tom Hanks and Shelley Long. It was funny enough to keep us engrossed till about 4.30am, and I found out much later that it was a 1986 flick – surprisingly we didn’t find the cinematography dull (again, taking into the account of when the film was released) for us modern youngsters, but that goes to show that if you do something good enough, it would be a timeless piece that would be appreciated well into the future.

In the evening at about 5pm, my family (except Eugene) left the house and went to Istana Budaya to watch Mamma Mia! the Musical. It was raining when we got there early, and we stayed in the car lepaking, eating McDonald’s wtf, and I took a short nap too.

Me and my family – asked this Korean uncle to snap a photo for us, and when I explained to him that he has to look through the viewfinder, he asked me why he couldn’t just see from the LCD screen. “Because it’s like that..?” I replied wtf, realising after I said it that it sounded a bit rude.

Mum in her erm suit (or not) wtf.

Mum and bro.

When it was 8pm plus, doors were open and we were ushered to our seats, but not before I was stopped by this makcik for carrying a “big bag” and she asked me to put it in the locker by inserting a 50sen coin. I looked at her incredulously, and told her that I’ve seen their lockers and their small lockers will not fit in my “big bag” as she put it that way. Not knowing what else to say, she then told me that I shouldn’t have brought my “big bag” in next time (wtf??) and told me to leave it in the car instead, and when I replied I was afraid that my bag would be stolen if I did that, she made that “pfft” sound and looked away wtf. “Really!” I told her exasperatedly because she obviously didn’t read in the papers about having laptops or cameras or other expensive equipment stolen from smashing windows of cars.

Anyway I went to my seat, sat down, and awaited for the finest West End musical to begin. Obviously many people didn’t take heed to the “no photography” ruling mentioned several times on notice boards and PA announcements, ‘cause plenty of flashes went off when we were in the hall (and duly warned by the laser lights of the staffs, as well as warned verbally – yeah they were pretty strict on that rule, so there goes my hope of videoing one or two performances for the benefit of those who weren’t there lol).

The musical began with a lovely overture / prologue of several familiar ABBA tunes mashed together, and shortly after, the curtain rises and there was Sophie (Miria Parvin) in that haunting voice of hers singing I Have a Dream..

If you’ve watched the movie, you’d by then realise that the movie was similar to the musical (as it was based on the musical after all) with a few notable differences in the musical, where there’s more songs and it’s slightly longer for the musical. I loved the live music – a fusion of modern tunes spiced up with an array of musical instruments, even a windchime or whatever you call it – and the casts who performed very well. Jackie Clune who plays Donna Sheridan sounded exactly like Meryl Streep in the Mamma Mia! movie.. and I liked that. During the Mamma Mia sequence, I liked how they injected a few ‘twists’ to the song by having certain parts of the chorus really quiet.. hard to explain what I mean if you weren’t there. >_>

My only gripe was that the English accent of the casts was a bit too thick for me to understand, so I couldn’t get the humour when the audience laughed. >_>

Everything was colourful, explosive, and exuberant – the dances were elaborate and very well choreographed, the acting was brilliant, lighting was top-notch, and I needn’t say more about the music. :) ‘twas my first time to a musical, so I was like a kid mesmerised completely by the entire proceedings (like how the props for the scene rotate by itself and the ensemble would jump onto the stage with the props smoothly and effortlessly).. and unlike the movie, where your eyes see whatever the video camera shoots, your eyes will have a difficult time following every single character (including the ensemble) that dances and prances through the songs. For some reason I was actually more taken in by the ensemble, who really did gave their all as does the main cast.

In a particular scene when Sky’s clothes were actually off on stage wtf, the three girls sitting to my right were oooh-ing quite audibly hahahaha, as well as during the Lay All Your Love on Me number when the male ensemble (and Sky) were topless and looked absolutely ripped. And during the Does Your Mother Know song, a particular dance sequence involved Pepper being pushed and inadvertently (actually purposely wan la) grabbed Tanya’s boobs wtf which got a “wooo” reaction from the audience.

Oh and because our seats were on the upper tier (as a result of buying the tix a tad bit late, and they were the ‘cheapest’ seats no less), we were gifted with a view a little far away that we could barely make out the faces (and shirtless bodies wtf) and at an angle of about 45 degrees downwards – so we can’t actually determine if they did perform full-on kissing scenes but methinks they were real. A little too bad that we couldn’t be near the stage to have a truly complete experience of the musical no thanks to that matter of financial constraint, but well, being able to experience it was good enough I suppose.

The finale was ended with a repeat performance of Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, and a yet-to-be-sung Waterloo, to repeated claps by the audience where some stood in a standing ovation and danced at their seats to the final 3 songs.

Additional songs that weren’t in the movie for the benefit of those who’ve watched the film but couldn’t catch the musical (numbers indicate the order of song during the musical):

• 4) Thank You For the Music – Sophie, Sam, Harry & Bill
• 11) The Name of the Game – Sophie & Bill
• 14) Under Attack – Sophie & Company
• 15) One of Us – Donna
• 18) Knowing Me, Knowing You – Sam

And so the curtain drew at about 11pm.

We were downstairs at the lounge and right when the stall which sells Mamma Mia! merchandise turned off their lights, I went there to purchase the soundtrack of the musical (not performed by the International Tour cast who were there in Kuala Lumpur, but the one in London.. and after listening to the entire album I kinda prefer the voices of the International Tour cast better) for RM45 as well as the souvenir booklet for RM35. >_> Hell it’s an experience of a lifetime and I bloody loved it.

I strongly urge all of you to attend a live musical at least once in your life – you will not regret it. :) Especially a Mamma Mia! production..

On the way back I had a nasty time trying to stop myself from laosai-ing in the car wtf probably no thanks to some expired sushi I ate for breakfast that morning..

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Just came back from watching Australia a few hours ago with Heng and Jess at Pyramid – it really did exceed my expectations after reading a scathing review on TheStar about it this morning: excellent accompanying musical scores at the right moments (makes me like the old song Over the Rainbow now), beautiful visuals of the outback and Australia (although.. a little too beautiful that it seems almost fake wtf), with a quite an engaging and touching storyline albeit a bit predictable. All lasting nearly 3 hours, making it a very long watch indeed – but it was all good.. I loved the cattle droving scene particularly.

Funny that in this week alone I’ve watched two movies that made me somewhat hate the Japanese for their actions during the World War II.