TARANTINO LIVE - REVIEW - RIVERSIDE STUDIOS

With the recent massive success of musicals made from film properties like Back to the Future and jukebox musicals like Tina, it’s no wonder that For the Record thought to mash the two together. Such is Tarantino Live, a musical that mashes up the greatest scenes from all nine Quentin Tarantino films mixed with live performances from the pop music that soundtracks them. In some ways, it’s logical; few filmmakers utilise pop culture and pop music as well as Tarantino, and both his films and their soundtracks have large followings. Yet Tarantino Live simply falls flat; despite a strong cast of actor-musicians, whose performances at times are roof-raising in intensity, the show simply feels incoherent and fannish.

The choice to mash together scenes chosen on the basis of loosely shared themes is an odd one. I have seen five Tarantino films, meaning that I knew about half of the scenes playing over the evening. Those scenes, crucially, work best in context, without which the tension that Tarantino meticulously builds across a film falls flat; no matter how well performed, they feel like LARPing rehashes of much greater material. Worse are the scenes from films that I did not know, which simply could not land without any knowledge of the character or situation. Tarantino may be a well-known director, but any piece of theatre that requires the pre-viewing of nine films is inevitably going to lose a lot of its audience, many of whom seemed confused throughout.

Furthermore, the director’s decision of which scenes to include raises serious questions about audience enjoyment. Within the context of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, scenes of the mass murder of Jewish people or of slaves being sold are absolutely vital. Throwing them in a raise-the-roof musical context is another matter. An early scene which shows Sharon Tate singing ‘Bang Bang’ whilst the Manson family massacre her and her friends is a discomfiting case in point; it is tasteless, and misses the wider context whilst emphasising the feel-good factor of the Tarantino romp through the – in fairness – fantastic vocal performances.

Full kudos should be given to the set and costume design; set pieces such as a car built out of chains and wheeled cupboards are the most effective vehicle I’ve seen onstage and makes for a really dramatic car chase from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Nevertheless, the visual experience is not an overall satisfying one; the production’s claim to be immersive seems to mean that some audience members are seated at tables rather than in rows. In practice, this is much less immersive than, say, a Globe Theatre production. It is a shame to see so much talent struggling with such poor material throughout, but Tarantino Live simply does not provide what it promises.

Tarantino Live is on at Riverside Studios until the 13th of August – find out more here!

{🎟 AD: PR Invite – Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review}

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