Dr Who Symphonic Spectacular.
The Metropolitan Orchestra. Conducted by Ben Foster. The Sydney Opera House. December 2012
You might want to ask ‘Why?’ But there’s
actually been a trickle of Dr Who based theatrical outings over the years
including the odd play in London and a devastatingly enjoyable evening a few
years ago in Canberra that involved an onstage TARDIS, two doctors (Sylvester
McCoy and Colin Baker) and companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning) with Tim Ferguson
as referee and a bemused Coralie Wood doing the publicity.
The Dr Who Symphonic Spectacular was not
as cosy as plunking the above irrepressibles into the Canberra Theatre and
letting them ramble anecdotally. The series is now large scale, trendy, and
fans in America go nuts about it. So the theatrical and musical response is to
hire the Sydney Opera House’s Concert Hall, pack in a large local orchestra and
choir to do the music, put a screen upstage to run the clips and have two of
the actors fly in to do narration.
Since these were Alex Kingston (River
Song) and Mark Williams (Rory’s dad Brian) this was no hardship; they were
funny and capable and clearly enjoying the phenomenon.
The emphasis was on Murray Gold’s
heart-on-sleeve music for the Matt Smith era with a nod in the direction of the
past history of a show that will turn 50 this year. Sydney’s Metropolitan
Orchestra conducted by Ben Foster looked youthful and played with gusto.
Australian Ron Grainer’s original theme arranged by Delia Derbyshire and the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop got due recognition although recent arrangements seem
to be burying the melody in a lot of thumping.
Interesting that a science fiction show
which first attracted me because of the unearthly quality of the music is now
going for big orchestras and choirs that go ‘Ahhh…’ and ‘Ooooh…’. Shades of
MGM and the great Biblical epics of the 1950s. Dr Who goes Hollywood.
Of course it was that big screen upstage
with the film clips that drew the eye repeatedly, but the live action included
some Vampires of Venice, the Ood, the Silence, a Judoon, a couple of Silurians and
of course a set of Daleks, even if they were the modern hunchbacked variety. I
must have blinked and missed the Weeping Angels. All good for a bit of audience
and orchestra conductor menacing and the happy alarming of small children of
which there were many.
The lighting design went mad on masses
of moving TARDIS blue except when something more flame like was required, but
managed to calm things down for the occasional good moment with one of the live
aliens caught in a single pool of light. Dr Who has always had its moments of
introspection and reflection.
Out in the foyer commerce raged but I
was able to resist the opportunity to purchase a blow up Dalek or a Laplander-style
TARDIS hat. Took the photo though.
