Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, the Movenpick Hotel Bahrain held two evenings of glorious nostalgia called A Night On Broadway.
Featuring the singing, dancing and acting talents of Johnny Amobi, Gavin James Burke, Jane Watkins and Louis Yssel – all seasoned West End performers – it was a trip down memory lane for enthusiasts of musicals.
Ranging from the 1936 classic Your Feet’s Too Big brought to Broadway in 1978 in Ain’t Misbehavin to I Want To Be Free and Somebody To Love from the Queen musical We Will Rock You; with stops along the way to honour Grease, West Side Story, Chicago, Cabaret and more, it was a musical treat that made us all forget the cold wind blowing outside.
Sadly, for the Thursday performance at least, there wasn’t anything like a full house. There were only around 80 of us, yet somehow the organisers still managed to muck-up the seating chart so that at the start we were wandering around like headless chickens trying to find our seats.
And it was easy to spot the look of dismay that flitted across the faces of the performers when confronted by empty seats.
The sound track was way too loud and at times drowned out the performers. But to do them (the performers) credit, they made an excellent job of it.
They immediately kicked up their game and gave a full-force professional performance as if it were a packed stadium instead of a 5-star hotel in Muharraq.
Starting us all gently on our journey with love songs and anthems such as Maria from West Side Story, we were all lulled into a false sense that this was going to be a bland evening.
Suddenly, Amobi erupted onto the stage with his marvellous sense of comedic timing and launched into a rendition of Your Feet’s Too Big that would have won applause from Fats Waller.
On they went towards the intermission without missing a beat. Watkins, proving herself to be both versatile and a great performer, with songs from Cabaret and Chicago, plus Burke and Yssel seemingly battling for her favours. Sadly, there was no programme or song list provided and I was too engrossed to remember to write down all the songs!
The evening became more riotous after the intermission, with those amongst the audience who had partaken of libations during the break being hauled up on stage to sing and dance with the cast. Not before, however, Yssel and Burke had given a superb performance of I Want To Break Free and Somebody To Love that had us all dancing in our seats even as all four had assured us that they loved All That Jazz from Chicago.
The evening was rounded off by songs from Grease and a Conga-line led around the floor and over the stage by Amobi who performed one of the highest high kicks I have ever seen a man do!
All-in-all, it was a fun-filled musical evening led by some powerful singers and entertainers. We didn’t want it to end and the audience refused to move until they came back and gave us a rousing encore.
A nostalgic Night on Broadway to remember!
– Christine Hasan
