Arts
High School Musical 3 Review Without a doubt, High School Musical 3: Senior Year was
It was clearly a rushed idea in order to get a third instalment of the film out due to high demand, though younger fans wouldn’t be conscious of this cheat against them. The film attempts to show the now grown up cast of HSM in a more personal environment with scenes at Troy and Gabriella’s
going to be a hit. From the success of the previous two films,
homes as well as the much-anticipated announcement of their
HSM had a cult-following of all ages and HSM 3 attempts to
love for each other. It is packed with songs that the younger
cater to this audience through the new songs and romantic
generation can memorise and terrorise their parents with, but at
relationships within the film.
times, despite being a musical, the songs seem unnecessary and
Senior Year opens at the championship basketball game for
rushed. They are of considerably less quality than the previous
the East High Wildcats and once again Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) is
two films, with the exception of maybe two and feel a bit hurried
in two minds about where he should be and what he should be
in their composition.
doing with his life. He is torn between his girlfriend Gabriella
Overall, HSM 3 ticks all the boxes for a movie with which to
(Vanessa Hudgens), who is about to leave for college, and his
silence the kids for an hour and a half. The memorable
jock team mates, who want him to join them on a mass
characters are all back to add to their roles and make Senior Year
basketball take over. The plot seems rather unnecessary as the
the most exciting year of their lives, definitely one for the kids.
gang get together to perform an end-of-year musical entitled
- Charlotte Murphy
Senior Year, reflecting the events of their last year of high school.
Arts Centre Production ‘Lucky Stiff’ Review Every year the Brunel Arts Centre puts on a musical and every year it is only seen by a minority of Brunel students. I think that this is a tragedy as a great deal of effort goes into each production and there are some fantastic performances both on and off stage. This year’s musical was Lucky Stiff, a farcical musical comedy revolving around the hapless protagonist Harry Witherspoon played by Richard Butt, a newcomer to the drama scene whose musical performance was phenomenal. The story follows Witherspoon as he is handed the task of holidaying with his recently deceased Uncle Tony in Monte Carlo in exchange for six million dollars; if he is not successful in this task then the money will go to the Universal Dog Home of Brooklyn. He is closely watched throughout these escapades, by Dog Home employee, Annabel Glick, played by second year Drama and Music student Meera Shaunak. Meanwhile, in Atlantic City, an optometrist, Vinnie Di Ruzzio (Yeukayi Ushe), is visited by his legally blind sister, Rita La Porta (Jenni Wyatt) who reveals to her brother that she has accidentally murdered her lover, while
not wearing her glasses, that the six million dollars in diamonds she and her lover had embezzled from her gangster husband is gone, that her lover was Harry's Uncle Anthony, and that the heart-shaped box full of jewels is now en-route to Monte Carlo! Together, they embark for Monte Carlo to find Harry and retrieve the money before Rita's Mafioso husband finds out. The plot of “Lucky Stiff” becomes even more convoluted and flamboyant but one would expect nothing less from a musical. The performances by the main cast and chorus were superb with only a few faults; I found that the part of the “drunken maid” was dragged out by the actress and in this case less would have definitely been more! The performance by Drama graduate Peter O’Regan as the dead Uncle Tony was fantastic: being able to sit completely still throughout the entire production and being thrown around the stage like a rag doll definitely increased the comedic value. The female lead played by second year Meera Shaunak was superb and her shy character was refreshing against the flamboyant Monte Carlo backdrop. I think that the stand out performance of the night was the character of Emcee played by third year Solomon Onibeju. His performance before the interval was refreshing and added a new bounce of energy into the performance; the same can be said for the character of Dominique played by Catherine Page.