FAME – Liverpool Empire

Music: Steven Margoshes

Lyrics: Jacques Levy.

Book: Jose Fernandez

Reviewer: – Stephanie Rowe

The Public Reviews Rating:

Anyone who was around in 1980 will remember the hit film Fame starring the magnificent Irene Cara, which went on to become a huge hit as a television series. Followed by the remake film in 2009.

Fame looks at the lives of a group of actors, singers, dancers and artists over their four years at the New York City High School of Performing Arts, a powerhouse where youngsters from all walks of life are given the chance to shine and achieve lasting fame, the kind that comes from talent, dedication and lots of hard work. In an incredibly competitive atmosphere, plagued by self doubt each student’s passion will be put to the test. In addition to their artistic goals, they have to deal with everything else life throws their way, like budding romance’s, a rut of never ending school work and the most important journey of all, that of self discovery.

A reinvention of the original Oscar® winning hit film, “Fame” follows a talented group of dancers, A This cast of young people from the local area, who have been working with a professional creative team would be hard pushed to pull off this show in a manner that would leave the audience highly charged and wanting more, but to be fair they certainly gave it their all and it would have been a fantastic show if they had not tried to put so many youngsters on the stage at the same time. I understand that they want to give everyone the chance to shine but this show did not warrant that many all at once, as it took a lot of the quality away from the storyline.

The main characters played their roles truly magnificently using every emotion to bring their parts alive and make them believable, but it was the voices of Jess Hunt (Serena Katz), Lauren Sidwell (Carman Diaz) and Sol Adams (Nick Piazza) that were surprisingly mind-blowing, they delivered their songs with such panache and feeling, reaching notes that some professional actors would have been hard fetched to reach and are definitely stars of the future.

The stage setting, along with the lighting and sound added to the overall feeling and were very professionally thought out. It was a shame there were too many darkened moments especially during scene changes.

All in all this show had a certain feel good factor about it that left me feeling a good night had been achieved.

I took along my step-daughter, grand-daughter and her friend who all belong to dancing schools in Ellesmere Port and each one of them stated that the dancing was of a very high standard and they enjoyed the whole evening.