Lopez Blogs

Somehow Digital Spy has recently surpassed Popjustice and Zap2it as my favourite not really a blog type website. Sometimes it's because they have Lee Pace on their gayspy feature. Sometimes it's because they show how stupid movie stars sometimes and probably often are. But today it's because despite being signed to a mailing list to alert me to this momentous event, digitalspy was the first place that I heard that Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (The Musical) tickets were finally on sale in the UK!!!!! AND!!!!! Jason "neighbours/shagged kylie/got new albums of classics out soon/rip your clothes off and stick a bottle of poppers up your nose" Donovan is starring in it! As a gay! Screw broadway cos all the best party atmosphere musicals are originating from Australia. First Dirty Dancing, and now this!! Marvelous....

I could write about how magnificent the film is, but actually I'm going to focus on the soundtrack to the musical which has actually been an obsession of mine for most of this year. I kept meaning to write about it, but criminally never got around to it. Criminally because it's actually a musical romp through some of the catchiest and potentially gayest songs in pop history. And even if you just listen to the soundtrack without any prior knowledge of the film, you are aware of one of those life stories unfolding that you don't realise is happening until after the event. And it's so hard not to smile while listening to the album - each song is imbued with a joie de vivre as various misfits and outcasts of the story sing and dance their way through life. Opener Downtown is presented in finger clicking glory, Go West outcamps even the Pet Shop Boys version and I Love The Nightlife starts off with a drunk bartender berating her lack of bedroom success before leaping into a positively glittering disco epic fizzing over with muted horns and and a strangely alluring bongo drum beat. There is tenderness and sadness in both the upbeat and slow songs. Don't Leave Me This Way is an ode to a deceased lover, while Both Sides Now can't fail to be almost as heartbreaking as it is when Emma Thompson is wronged in Love, Actually...

Colour My World (which, I could be wrong, but I suspect opens the second half?) is a song I'm not familiar with but is so ridiculously perky and upbeat and pop chart worthy that I'm surprised Same Difference haven't already picked up on it. And as the show comes to a close there are some intruiging medleys of pop songs such as Sos-Morning After (perfectly matched when you think about it) and Always On My Mind-Confide In Me which pitches the former as a gentle ballad and the latter as an operatic masterpiece. And strangely it works very well. Then of course there is a final happy perky song, that again could be a Same Difference track - We Belong, a song about acceptance and harmony. With harmonies in it! How postmodern is that. So even if the musical isn't playing in a city near you, just pick up the soundtrack and spend a delicious hour and a bit immersed in musicalised pop history. And while we are on the subject of Australia, which is the most pathetic segueway ever, I'm not a huge fan of boxer shorts but these are pretty splendiferous!!

Random related musicals links:

• My review of Chess
• My review of Half A Sixpence
• My review of Sound of Music
• My review of Joseph....
• My review of Little Shop of Horrors
• My review of Dirty Dancing on stage

Now if someone would just recognise the genius of my musical set to the music of Madonna (Like A Prayer - Erotica period) about a nun who becomes a popstar...