As we take our seats to watch the 2000th performance of Thriller Live, the Michael Jackson tribute show that I’d passed many a time on Shaftesbury Avenue and turned my nose up at, my mate James casually announces that he saw MJ‘s last ever performance.
This is a bit of a stunner. “It was very odd,” he confesses. “I ended up at an awards show and Jackson had won one. He wandered on stage, sung one line, then buggered off again.” He wasn’t impressed.
I’ve got to admit that I’m no MJ fan. He’s always creeped me out. That glove, those short trews, that crotch grabbing. Just….creepy. I remember me and my college mates all gathering round my 14″ black and white telly (the only one in the whole halls of residence) to watch the first showing of Thriller on C4 at midnight and being a bit underwhelmed. Well, who wouldn’t on a TV the size of a postage stamp? Perhaps I just can’t see genius when it’s staring me in the face. But then I was always more of a Smiths girl really – long black grandad coat and towering quiff. MJ always seemed the height of commercial naffness to us miserablists.
But I was curious as to what had made Thriller Live such a hit. I’d been to see Let It Be, The Beatles show at The Savoy, a few months ago and loathed it – and I like The Beatles. So how would I fare with someone I really didn’t like?
Brilliantly, as it turned out.
Just as the lights go down and some familiar X Factor music is ramping us up, three blokes trample all over our feet to take their seats. I huff (as I do) but they’re polite and the Lyric seat aisles are surprisingly roomy. It’s only in the interval that we realise that these boys are ‘someone’, though quite who neither James nor I can work out. But more of that later.
Firstly, there’s not one Michael Jackson, but at least six (I lose count). There’s baby MJ played tonight by Eshan Gopal, one of the revolving cast of five kiddie crew.
Did you know that Thriller Live grow their own foetal MJs? There’s an academy you see, where they input little babies who show signs of having rhythm and soul, they go chug chug chug along the conveyor belt and hey presto, there they are: brand new little Michaels, complete with bouncy afros and very tight flares. And my, how bloody sweet they are.
You think I’m joking don’t you? Well, I’m not. There is actually an academy where they turn out their own child stars, four each year, which makes 20 so far by my reckoning, but then they grow up of course, their voice breaks, and they’re shucked off to be replaced by a brand new boxfresh set. I did, I must admit, wonder what happened to them when they left the show. A bit like choirboys, do most of their voices break to smithereens, never to sing again? But Gopal‘s fame was burning brightly and that was all that mattered there and then. Perhaps a good proportion are lucky enough to keep their pitch and graduate to the heady status of adult MJs.
It’s a surprise that there’s not one Michael, but it makes it less a straight tribute concert, more a celebration, as the audience gets a variety of voices and looks singing the familiar songs. The set is pared down. Two sets of steps rise to a balcony across the stage, a screen hung below, lights and light panels above. Chairs, tables and even a couple of plain sofas are the only props, brought on and off, but atmosphere is created by costumes and the LED screens, taking us from New York to, yes, of course, a spooky graveyard.
Loosely narrated by each of the MJs in turn, as and when it’s needed, the show doesn’t get too fingers down throats so my spirits are still buoyed as we’re introduced not only to Beefy MJ (Andrae Palmer), Skinny MJ (Britt Quinton), and Eyebrows MJ (honestly not sure), but also White MJ (Ricardo Alfonso), and Female MJ (Zoe Birkett). Yes, you read that right.
White MJ has a belter of a voice but unfortunately looks like he’d just scooted down from We Will Rock You and wandered into the wrong show. His gear is all wrong, his face is all wrong, his attitude is all wrong (it turned out he is from We Will Rock You where he’s played the lead for a number of years – obviously marks you for life does We Will Rock You. All Ben Elton‘s fault).
Hang on a min. There’s Janet Jackson. And she appears to be flirting with her brother, Skinny MJ. This is just a bit weird even in MJ World. But hey, stupid Kat, they’re not supposed to be anyone really, just singers singing the back catalogue. But boy does Pop Idol girlie Zoe Birkett look like JJ, sound like JJ, and have the attitude of JJ. In a series of ultra tight leggins and skyscrapper heels, she pouts and poses around the stage, eyebrows nearing her hairline, cleavage nearing her navel, and she smashes it, beating the boys hands down.
Interval time and James is keen to find out who the mystery boys are who made mincemeat of our toes earlier so we decamp to the foyer to find a gaggle of ten year old girls looking like they’re about to wet themselves. Hands clenching and unclenching, small gasps emerge from their mouths as if they can’t quite catch their breath as word goes round that ***** are in the building.
I look at them and I’m back to being ten and imagining how I’d have felt if a) my parents had ever taken me to the West End and b) whilst there I’d bumped into Les McKeown (Google him, youngsters). Mind you, he’d probably have been drunk and disgraced himself. In passing, I must mention that I’ve now got a chance to interview the blighter but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’d still fall at his feet in a faint and at my age and my size and with my knees, no one would be able to get me up again.
I tap a girl on the shoulder. She jumps. “Who are the boys?” I ask. “Rough Copy!!” I look blank. “X Factor!!” She stares at me as if I’m an alien. By this time the three singers have all gone out for a fag and I wonder why the girls don’t follow them. Then I realise that they’re scared and I really want to help them meet their “favourite boyband in the whole world!” They scamper off to get pens and programmes and the boys come back in and pose for some photos with adults who are old enough to know better.
James and I are bobbing about in the background throwing bunny ears, thus making those adults who are old enough to know better look like Methuselah in comparison to us. It’s just so good to be bloody childish though. Who can resist.
I never know whether the girls get their boys as the bell rings and we have to go in and sit down. Rough Copy repeat their earlier trick of course and stamp all over our feet again, getting to their seats late. More apologies, more sheepish looks, but I now can’t help but smile.
Not quite believing that I’m actually looking forward to the second half, I drift off and enjoy the spectacle and the occasional oddity this show throws up. Bro and sis get unnervingly close again, then Slash appears to amble on to the stage playing a guitar, but this Slash is even more addled looking than the real one. Am I missing something that a real MJ fan wouldn’t? Or did they pick him at random?
Dirty Diana, sung by White MJ, is a weirdly staged number involving two girls dressed as fetish gladiators with mohican helmet plumes made of fibre optic cable. Oh, you know – those white, floppy strands that light up at the ends. Only these don’t light up (they missed a trick there) but the girls fanny flash their way around the stage while zooming about on a couple of very plain sofas so all is well.
I’m really liking this eccentric side of the show as although it’s obvious that everyone involved regards MJ as a God with a capital ‘G’, the show lacks a certain……sensibleness….that would make it unbearable for anyone who didn’t see him in that light. It makes it forgivable, human, not exactly funny, but with more of a whimsical British twist than I’m not at all sure they intended.
So there I’m sitting, basking in the music, the costumes, the acres of black leather and glitter, when all of a sudden it threatens to go tits up. There’s a speech about just how Michael longed to change the world, some of the MJ Academy kids are brought on stage all dressed in white, and we’re treated to Man in the Mirror by the ensemble, ending with huge faces projected onto the back screen.
Martin Luther King – check. JFK – check. John Lennon – sort of check. Bob Geldof?? Bono??? WTF??! This way madness lies! Ah, but we’re back in the realm of the sane again. Mandela – check. Obama – sort of check. MICHAEL JACKSON HIMSELF. A big fuck off head projected on a big fuck off screen hovering above the stage. God himself. God. Oh God….God help us all. Jesus.
Heal the World follows and I sit cringing remembering the all too real schmaltzy side of Jackson, the side I hated. The cast perform it well of course, and the sickliness dial is thankfully never turned up to ten, but it’s a reminder of just how pop stars ‘doing’ causes is so ridiculously trite, even, I’m afraid, when it’s the saintly Lennon. But that’s just the Morrissey in me barking and howling at the moon and conveniently forgetting that Meat is Murder.
Rough Trade – Copy, Copy! – now think the show is over and the three of them once again climb all over us to get out of their seats, the fag siren calling them to the pavement. Ouches over and done with, I settle once again as James whispers in my ear, “How come they haven’t realised it can’t be the end as we haven’t had the most famous song yet? Anyone’d think they’d never been to the theatre before.” I don’t care. I’m just glad my feet are now safe.
Ho hum. Back in they troop after someone’s obviously told them of their faux pas. How many times is that now? But I’m pretty mellow, musing that they might well become the next JLS. I mean, how many of us oldies saw THAT lot coming?
All through the show an anonymous performer has played the part of the hard-dancing MJ, doing all the twiddly bits: the moonwalking (each little episode of which gets whoops of appreciation from the audience), the standing on tippytoes, and the fiddle faffing around with feet and bandaged fingers. He’s the centrepiece, the focus, while the other MJs do their own stuff. Hat tipped down low over head, I wonder why the coyness. Is it an actual a real life Jackson who’s agreed to appear for the anniversary show? Justin Timberlake? Twiggy? Oh hell, I don’t know. I’m just musing to myself.
But no, it turns out it’s simply that the guy under the hat (David Jordan) doesn’t really look like MJ at all. Well, that’s not strictly true. He looks like Lenny Henry playing MJ (if you’re old enough to remember that Thriller skit). If someone had ironed MJ‘s face (and God knows someone probably did at some stage), it would look like Jordan‘s: flatter and bigger. He mimes to the two songs he performs on his tod, but it hardly matters. It’s the moves that matter and he has those in spades.
Video. A box opens: white gloves are put on: and Jordan/MJ is on the stage, accompanied by a Mini MJ who shadows his every move. It’s electric. It’s Billy Jean.
A troupe of zombies thread their way through the audience. Jordan is in the so-familiar red leather almost-biker suit and together they stomp their way through the mad genius of Thriller.
Rough Copy (did Cowell shove this lot in an office and order them to come up with a name and quick, and they looked around and the first thing they saw was the photocopier? Honestly) twitch. I feel it through the seats, but once burned and all that. This time they manage to resist the urge to get out of the building as quickly as possible and keep still for a sodding change.
Skinny MJ appears and ushers on the Mini Michaels, the whole gaggle of five who alternate performances. A Magnitude of Michaels. A Milipede of Michaels. A Melt of Michaels. Make your own up. Anyway, this is a Special Occasion. This is an Anniversary. All the Michaelkins are allowed to be up late tonight.
A cake is produced – a very large, square cake – adorned with a photo of MJ and some ‘happy all of us’ words. Skinny MJ tips it up so the photographer can take a snap and everyone holds their breath. One slip. But no. Cakus intacticus.
Then we’re asked if we want another song. I find myself inwardly saying ‘Hell yeah’ and am so surprised I realise I must look like a meerkat that’s just spotted a hyena on the horizon. We get a Bad reprise. It’s then, half way through the song, that it dawns on me that I’m going to end up eating that very cake as we’re off to the aftershow party. This meerkat licks her lips.
And here’s the thing. Cough Ropey only bloody stay in their seats just long enough for us to get out of ours first! Those wacky, out of tune rascals….
Aftershow parties are always odd if you don’t know anyone and are sober. James, uncharacteristically, drinks a whole bottle of lager and gets the giggles. We sit near the cake, waiting like lunatic vultures (yes, I’ve changed from an animal to a bird in just over five minutes – so what?) No celebs to speak of. The cast mingle, the Mini MJs huddle and have tiny dance-offs, and then someone produces the magic slicer.
Two large slices later, we’re wondering if we can get away with another one. James seems to think that the bloke handing plates out is ‘The Guardian of the Cake‘ and we must wait for him to go before we can sneak yet another slice. “The Guardian looks just like Howard from The Great British Bake Off,” he says, and so he does. Howard does eventually leave the cake unattended and we dive in.
It’s only when I’m on the train home and look in the programme that I realise that Cakey Howard (as we now refer to him) is actually the producer of the whole show and not the official cake-slicer-upper at all. It’s no wonder we don’t get invited anywhere twice…….
Thriller Live continues for at least another year at the Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue. Times are various and can be found here: www.thrillerlive.com. Tickets cost from £27.50 to £66.50.