Doctor Who Liiiiiiiiiiive! and HP films.
Ooookay, so I'm back.
I know I said I'd post this review a few days ago, but basically my internet has been crashing left right and centre, so I've been avoiding it.
First and foremost, I'd like to point all HP fans in the direction of THIS EDITORIAL which pretty much sums up my feelings on the films. Also, Lady Lupin is awesome.
Right, onto reviewing!
Doctor Who Live was, in a word, FABULOUS. Another: BRILLIANT.
It did start out a bit unpromisingly; Vorgenson who was basically leading the show was a little bit too "hello boys and girls" cheesy for my liking; but then he turned out to be the villain!
Perhaps a brief plot summary is in order?
According to Wikipedia, It centers around Vorgenson, the Greatest Showman in the Galaxy, who with the help of his incredible invention, 'The Minimiser', can make any Doctor Who character appear on stage as part of his traveling show dedicated to his hero. These included Silurians, scarecrows, Cybermen, Judoon, clockwork robots, Winders, Smilers, Ood, Weeping Angels, and Saturnynes. The Doctor (appearing on screen) realises that this show is wrong and shouldn't be happening, and in trying to get it to stop he gets trapped in the minimiser himself by Vorgenson. Vorgenson is one of those great villians who genuinely thinks that he's not doing anything wrong, which was pretty fun. We then find out that secretly it was the Daleks that put the idea of the show into Vorgenson's head as a trap for the Doctor, and so they turn up and cause havoc until the Doctor can fix it all.
I'm going to do this review as a list, because otherwise all I'll be able to say is "omgdaleksandtherewasthisCOOL THING". And although that's entertaining, it's not really that informative. :P
Vorgenson - great fun! He started getting booed as soon as it was made clear he was the villian, and he revelled in it. Very melodramatic and overconfident; great fun to watch.
The Doctor - the inserts from the screen were longer and more fundamental to the show than I expected (I was thinking that he'd literally just show up to say hi) and he and Vorgenson were actually having conversations that worked really well. Matt Smith was typically hilarious/haphazard/heroic.
Ood - only really on stage; still kind of cool to see them, they seem bigger in real life :)
Silurians, Saturnynes - pretty cool to see weaving through the audience (one of the Silurians came right behind us!) but they didn't get to do much; they were pretty much just being shown off by Vorgenson and then brought back into the minimiser.
Judoon, Clockwork Robots - the Judoon got to go around the audience cataloguing people, and the Clockwork Robots did some traditional dancing, jerky-robot-ised, on stage. Silly and fun.
Winders, Smilers and Scarecrows - *shivers* Okay, so I'm a wimp. But me and Ben spent most of the show clutching one of Sophie's arms each, which got pretty funny after a while. A scarecrow and a smiler came right behind us, and hung around and stared for a few seconds probably because I was cringing away so much, lol. The scarecrows were wandering around in the interval too - at one point one of them had about six kids trailing after it, which was pretty entertaining. Also, Ben said that when he was outside in the interval a scarecrow came and stood behind some girls in the queue for refreshments for a good five minutes and they didn't realise it was there until it put a hand on their shoulder *grins* I think the smilers are more frightening, though.
Cybermen - AWESOME. They didn't come past us, but it was still really really bizarre to see them in real life. Stomp stomp stomp. They had a fight with the Daleks later, and one of them got shot, all the pyrotechnics going off on the suit was so cool. Also when they were initially stomping around the auditorium they pulled a plant out of the audience and dragged him off stage, only for there to be a scream and the sounds of a cyber factory and then a new cyberman come stomping on stage in his place. 'Twas brilliant :D
Weeping Angels - *is petrified*. These things terrify me as it is. They had the clip of the angel in the vault from Time of Angels playing on the big screen, and two angels on either side of the stage. Some policemen came running in and started exploring up onto the stage. And when one got too close to the angels? FLASH OF WHITE LIGHT THAT TEMPORARILY BLINDS THE AUDIENCE and then the the policeman is gone and the angels have moved. *shudders* Brilliant effect. I hadn't thought that they could use light instead of darkness, twas very clever. Terrifying, but clever. :D Now, onto the big villains of the show:
The Daleks - wow. Just wow. Seeing them on stage, in the not-flesh, just...wow. I had this huge stupid grin on my face and was clutching Sophie's arm like never before. They came out on stage one at a time: Red Drone, Blue Strategist, Orange Scientis, and Yellow Eternal. Fabulous. And then they were talking to the Doctor and trying to exterminate him, and then the cybermen. I know what you're thinking - where was the the white supreme one? Heeheeheehee.
Illusionists Gary and Paul Hardy-Brown, professionally known as "The Twins" made it fly. Yep. Flying Dalek. So. Frickin. AWESOME. And terrifying. And awesome. And terrifying. :D
Phew. So, yeah. I really enjoyed it, can you tell? Hm. What haven't I mentioned yet... oh yeah!
The music - Absolutely glorious. Soaring, fantastic. And it worked really well with the rest of the show, too.
Ben Foster - deserves a bullet point on this list all to himself. He was brilliant, jumping up and down at dramatic bits in the music, very doctorish in his enthusiasm not to mention the brown jacket and black trousers. Heeheeheehee :D
The effects and the screen - like I've said before, worked really really well.
I think that's it. In short, it was absolutely wondrous and if I could I would love to go see it alllllll over again :D
Hazel