Moby Dick

[ncbears]

So, what was Moby Dick actually like?  I have the CD and it's hard to tell from it whether the show was charming or audacious.  The liner notes state it was savaged by critics but the audiences who turned out had a good time.  The clips on bluegobo don't give me much of a sense of the show - likely due to be excerpts from Children in Need.  I have some self-interest because I'm looking for fun musicals that have lots of female roles to put on in my community.

[n1david]

I loved it, but it had an amateurish charm that didn't sit well in the West End. It was supported by Cam Mack and it was a very different type of show to his usual. I'd love to see it again - Southwark or The Union would be good. There was a production scheduled at the Landor a few years back but got cancelled amidst rumours of financial goings-on...

[Deleted]

I saw it twice... I thought it was great. Upbeat, refreshing, young cast, incredibly lively and catchy tunes. Looked good too but was worlds away from all the other Cam Mack stuff. It was very cheeky, with St Trinian type girlies, hunky boys and a cross dressing Headmistress, all spouting double entendres. The flyer even had a pop-up Moby Dick resembling a... well, dick at the point of ejaculation, although you might have been forgiven for thinking it was water! If it were running in the West End now, it's safe to assume the audience would be mostly male and drunken hen parties. Does that give you an idea? (Didn't our friend horton work on the show? His avatar shows it at the Piccadilly Theatre where I saw it. )

[Deleted]

It was a dreadful experience in the West End - utterly boring and perplexing. Maybe it had seemed fun at the Old Fire Station in Oxford?

[Someone in a tree]

As a teenager in the early 90's I watched the Wogan special and fell in love it with it. I then ordered the CD from the Dress Circle and listened to it constantly for years. Dick helped me grow!

I would love to see it staged today

The score is good

[loureviews]

It was certainly an experience. Quite unlike any other Mackintosh production and endearingly awful. The CD though is fun and the Wogan special gave a good flavour of the best bits, if not the whole spirit of the show. The late Tony Monopoly was the star if memory serves.

[horton]

Needless to say, I was there, before, during and after.

Long, long ago there was a desire to do a St Trinian's musical but the rights were utterly unavailable. Moby Dick was gradually developed by Hereward Kaye and Robert Longden and what opened in Oxford was a ramshackle but fun show.

Following his mega-hits, Cameron was looking to regain his youthful exuberance, I think- the show made him think he was avant-garde- so he pushed it into the West End. He was unwittingly probably the show's worst enemy because his brand made audiences expect another Les Mis or Cats. What they got was a sort of mad 'Salad Days' or 'Valmouth' with some Chippendales thrown in and an insane pregnant schoolgirl (drag) with a penchant for Judy Garland and Bette Davis impressions.

The set was beautifully layered junk and the audience gasped and cheered ever night when a group of umbrellas came together to create the massive whale (think Lion King He Lives in You moment).

There were puppet seals, step dance, an amazing line-up of talented young performers, but ultimately the management became flustered when the show wasn't immediately embraced by audiences and critics- it was not what they were used to. There were crisis meetings and attempts to re-work the show but what was the point? It was like saying "This Rocky Horror Show needs to make more sense".

The show's best legacy is the live recording, which shows how audiences who loved it REALLY loved it.

I'd like to tell you about the closing night- but I honestly can't remember much about it!!!

[Deleted]

The umbrellas were probably the only thing I remember about this but I suppose I have slept a lot since then. Oh and I remember Tony Monopoly's weird eye makeup (or maybe it was just his eyes)he had a sort of Dusty Springfield meets Alastair Sim look about him.

[Deleted]

I LOVED it!! Saw it a few times during its brief run, including its final night. As others have said, it was not what people might gave expected Cameron to do. I have the 5 track disc they recorded. Was the full show ever fully recorded in the studio, or was it just those few songs? And of course the double cd, which was only recorded for cast, but later released.

The Wogan recording and the whole show at the Piccadilly is available on youtube, I was watching bits of it again recently, though it not the greatest recording. The security guards stripping at the end was not expected, but much appreciated

ON WITH CULTURE!!!!

[crabtree]

The history of whales on stage - discuss.
The best must surely be the Royal Exchange's production of Moby Dick. And Opera North's Pinocchio also features an extraordinary whale.

[Someone in a tree]

I though Opera North spent too much money on it and it wasn't creative just a big prop ... Does anyone remember Pinocchio (BrumRep / Anthony Clark ) HUGE prop and a hydraulic stage - the audience clapped and gasped !

[loureviews]

Feb 21, 2016 0:54:37 GMT @tbfl said:

I LOVED it!! Saw it a few times during its brief run, including its final night. As others have said, it was not what people might gave expected Cameron to do. I have the 5 track disc they recorded. Was the full show ever fully recorded in the studio, or was it just those few songs? And of course the double cd, which was only recorded for cast, but later released.

The Wogan recording and the whole show at the Piccadilly is available on youtube, I was watching bits of it again recently, though it not the greatest recording. The security guards stripping at the end was not expected, but much appreciated

ON WITH CULTURE!!!!

Thank you so much for pointing out the YT stuff!  What a nostalgic time I have just had

[mistressjojo]

All that I remember of Moby Dick is that I missed it - IRA bomb scare the night I was going & the West End was shut down.
I remember being stuck in a bus in Regent Street for what seemed like hours.

[musicallady]

Who was in the cast?

[Deleted]

Quite a few of us had heard of Tony Monopoly!

(musicallady, you might have heard of Gary Martin, who played a hunky guard... He was Caiaphas in Paul Nicholas' concert tour of Superstar, and he sings the role on the 1992 recording!)

[BurlyBeaR]

Resurrecting this thread following comments about the show in the Cam Mack 50 thread where it never got a mention in the programme. Is Moby Dick Cameron Mackintosh’s dirty secret?
Last revival seems to have been the one at The Union in 2016 which went down badly with members here. The only production that seems to get good feedback was the Manchester REX one so I have been wondering, was the effect that produced the whale at the Rex the same effect that’s now used to create the lifeboat in Life of Pi?

[horton]

I don't think the humour has aged well- the sexualized schoolgirls would not be viewed kindly now (if they were back then).

The biggest shame is that Hereward Kaye stopped composing for theatre. Robert Longden had a series of ideas for other shows (I dimly remember Brideshead Revisited possibly being one). Cameron switched his attention to Stiles & Drewe so that was that.

Deck Dance, Forbidden Seas and the Finale (with its numerous lyric changes "Hey girl, hey boy the world's not a toy, save the whale it's our future" being one of the worst) are all great show tunes.