If you’re a movie boffin, then this one is certainly for you. Sitting through two and a half hours of film-themed songs can be really challenging if you’re not into film, because you will not have the luxury of playing “spot the film” with your +1.
That said, The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a musical celebration of some of the biggest film-related songs that Hollywood has produced. You should be thinking here of music from films such as Dirty Dancing, Grease, Footloose, Titanic and Saturday Night Fever to name a few.
The cast is made up of vocalists, two dancers and the band. One of the vocalists, Wayne Cumming, plays the role of MC, through the storyline of a character named Ben from Benoni, who has travelled to Hollywood to chase his dream of being a star. The story is cleverly written and its main aim is to provide intros to each of the songs.
Because of how The Barnyard at Gold Reef City is set up, the tables and chairs make it a rather intimate setting, with every audience member, even the ones at the back of the room, feeling as though they are intimately involved.
The good thing is that the Barnyard has an in-house restaurant, so you can make the evening a complete outing with dinner to enjoy while you watch the show.
Back to the music. I loved that the arrangements of the songs did not stray too far from the original compositions. The musical numbers are accompanied by simple enough choreography for the vocalists. But the dancers, Anzel van Zyl and Hoze Jonas, are a dream to watch.
The stand-out performances for me included Themba January leading at the end of the show with a rendition of Pharrell Williams’s Happy, and R Kelly’s I Believe I Can Fly. Dene Potgieter gives a compelling performance of Prince’s Purple Rain.
The show makes for an entertaining night out.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is on at The Barnyard Theatre at Gold Reef City until March 11.