Random Musings

More on the saga.

To use a boxing analogy, last Monday Adeline Chia knocked the musical “Singapura, Lion City” down onto the canvas, and just as it was making its way back up to its feet again, today she delivered another brutal knockdown blow.

If last Monday’s scathing review wasn’t enough to knock the show out for the count, then perhaps today’s column might have been the final nail in the coffin.

Let’s see…

Today she said the show “managed to outdo my worst imaginings”, that “the show was an event in the way that the creation of a Frankenstein monster can be an event”, that “the only thing going for it is that it may become one of those so-bad-it’s-good phenomena”, etc.

If these aren’t Iron Mike Tyson-ish killer blows then I don’t know what are.

I think the producers of the show have to hope that a) people don’t read the Life! section all that often, or b) people don’t pay much heed to whatever is being written in Life!.

Otherwise, I don’t know how the show is going to survive its ambitious 3-year run at the Kallang Theatre.

But what do I think about all this?

Honestly, I’ve not watched “Singapura, Lion City” so I am not in a position to comment.

But by the looks of things, I think the show is ill-conceived and should never have been made, at least not in this way.

I think I know what the producers were trying to aim for.

Words like “spectacular” and “multimedia extravaganza” and “crowd-pleaser” and “tourist attraction” and “Cirque du Soleil” come to mind.

By the looks of what Adeline Chia wrote, I don’t suppose the producers paid much attention to the actual writing of the musical.

Which is a pity, cos at the heart of every show is the writing, and if there is no good writing, then the show has no heart.

One thing people don’t realise about Pixar movies is that they always make sure they get the heart of the film sorted first, then they add all the bells and whistles and stuff.

And then there is also the whole issue of getting a largely foreign cast to tell the Singapore story, but I guess that is a story for another day.

As for now, “Singapura, Lion City” is definitely down for the count, and it remains to be seen if it will ever be able to recover from this huge blow so early on in the bout.