ABBA fever is currently taking over the West end - Mamma Mia, Mamma Mia the Party and ABBA Voyage are all big hits but how does Thank You For The Music compare? As a big ABBA fan myself, I was very excited to find out!
To start off with, this is more of a tribute concert than a theatre show. Unlike most other West End shows, singing and dancing as well as photography and videography is highly encouraged by the cast throughout the entire show. This made an incredibly fun party atmosphere, including lots of audience participation with singing competitions and learning choreography, which added to the overall concert feel.
The entire cast gave amazing performances and it felt exactly like ABBA were in the room with the sound, appearance and mannerisms. Kellie Vallance as Frida and Emma Parker as Agnetha had some beautiful vocals and held the audience in the palm of their hands, although sometimes their dancing was out of sync and not in time with each other. Steve Nelson as Benny and Dave Miles as Bjorn also had some very funny interactions and ad-libs.
Whilst there were some funny bits of dialogue, it felt there was slightly too much conversation in between the songs and a lot of "jokes" which unfortunately fell flat. This became a bit mundane at times and took away from the party atmosphere for a few minutes until they went into the next song.
As well as the main cast as ABBA, there were some incredible musicians on stage with the band. Jason Gumbley (drummer), Ben Hanson (Bassist) and Harry Garbutt (Keys) really brought ABBA’s music to life, sounding just like the records we know and love. Backing vocalists, Amy Reet and Elspeth Foster had some beautiful harmonies and helped to add depth to the music and had some great choreography too.
Although a concert, the show still felt very theatrical and had a brilliant use of projection to achieve this. The back of the stage had a huge LED screen filling the entire stage from left to right, top to bottom. Not only was this very bright and "showbiz" but the projections felt that they had their place and added to the overall atmosphere, unlike some other tributes/concerts were projections can feel tacky or not well thought out. The use of lighting also added to the theatrical look of the show.
The outfits of the main cast were great - as an ABBA fan, it was lots of fun to see them wearing the iconic outfits from ABBA's music videos and performances and I could see the amount of research and effort that must have gone into preparing the costumes.
If you want to feel like you are at an ABBA concert and have an incredibly fun night out, this is the show for you. This could slightly improve if some of the talking was cut down and some jokes cut, but overall the show has a great party atmosphere and feels like ABBA is in the room!
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AD | gifted tickets in return for an honest review | reviewed by Mark Hobbs
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