Reviews Theatre / Shrek The Musical

Shrek the Musical: Actually really good

Let's be honest, nobody expected this to be good. "Shrek the musical" sounds like nothing more than a cheap cash-in on the popular series. However, what I found when I saw it was actually a very well-made musical. It's actually very funny and clever for the most part, the jokes are actually very funny, and most of it is a better even the original film. It also has a lot of emotion mixed in with the humor, and Shrek's tale of being an outcast due to being an ogre is genuinely moving in some parts. However, it does fall flat in some regards. One part it falls is trying to emulate the film, presenting jokes that, while funny a decade ago, have by now become old-fashioned, and even painful to watch at times. Thankfully, these parts are few and far between, the Duloc song is the only one taken from the original film and most of the jokes are newly created. All in all I would recommend this musical, I think it was much better than the films and one of the best musicals I've seen. It's no Billy Elliot or Spamalot, but it's still very entertaining in its own way.