Whenever I watch YT videos of Britmania there's one or two comments that basically say the same thing: "The shows today have nothing on the great Broadway-style shows the park used to do, bring them back".
*sighs*
Look, I do enjoy watching old videos of the Broadway-style shows and I do like them for the effort they put into them back then. But if I am going to be really blunt and honest, not all of them were perfect. For example: Rockin the Boat has really good sets, very well done choreography and direction, but did they really need to put in the friggin' "Macarena" forcing the audience to participate right smack dab in the middle stopping the show dead? Why?? Not to mention the "mysterious enchanted island" sequence and how silly it looks and sounds now. At least Britmania's narration from the guitarist was handled well and had something close to a point that it never stop the show dead at all. Sure Britmania needs to slightly change some things to make it even better, but for a first season show, it's amazing for how good it is from the start. The current version of All For One does have Planchet getting the audience to cheer and shout the Musketeer's motto and boo the Red Guard, but that happened in the prologue and they boo the Red Guard by choice during the whole show. Celebrate America is entertaining for what it is but the biggest question that ran in my head was this: "Why is this America themed show in the English Globe Theater and not in the Canadian Palladium?". Speaking of, American Jukebox seems to be quite an infamous example around here isn't it?
What I'm trying to get at here is that while those shows were really entertaining for the time; my preference, even when I was a very little kid, was always for shows that fit the theme of Europe. Shows like This is Oktoberfest!, Finiculi Finicula, and Enchanted Laboratory transported me as if I traveled across the sea and something that the mundane place I lived wouldn't give me. The park's entertainment department must've understood that too, because once Ireland came around in 2001 and I saw the mind-blowing magnificence of Irish Thunder, that's when I realized that the park has found it's unique identity at last and that they didn't need those Broadway shows anymore. Heck, even the Cirque shows in the Royal Palace Theater were something to behold. Of course I grew up to appreciate the Broadway-style shows of back then, even enjoy the YT videos of them whenever they show up. But I can't stand it when people badly shoot down a current era of shows because they don't "fit" with the previous era; when in reality both eras have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example: the current era (2017) of shows are themed perfectly to the hamlets they reside in, with the the exception of Mix it Up! though it's theme can be debatable, plus shows like Britmania, All For One, and Celtic Fyre are great examples of how much the right talent can really turn a show fantastic, but a rather big weakness is that the entertainment staff is quite messy now that one or two shows have an obvious weaker quality compared to everywhere else, or most of them depending on who you ask (for me personally, I really enjoyed all of them with the disappointing exception being OktoberZest and the awkward More Pet Shenanigans).
The previous era had a big strength when it comes to it's shows was a phenomenally talented entertainment staff that worked at the park since at least the mid-80's, that made the shows very well made and never felt amateurish at any point. Despite the big weakness that they had to work on some shows that quite frankly would've fit in everywhere else and not necessarily inspiring. When they did work on the European themed shows (either in-sourced or out-sourced), pure magic happened that I don't think can be recreated ever again, though the current rumors of Busch Gardens veterans coming back and working on some of the shows, the director of OktoberZest worked on Rockin the Boat, the choreographer of Britmania is a well loved choreographer, Gary Lensenmayer working on the music for All For One, and a great violinist that worked with the park since the 90's made a surprise visit in Celtic Fyre, might actually say otherwise. Of course both Entwined and London Rocks were the park's recent attempts (from a previous, really bad regime) to bring "Broadway to the park" and bring the Broadway-style show back... We all know how well those turned out... :irritated:
But this is all opinion at this point and disagreements will happen, but I just needed to vent out this anger and frustration in the only way I knew how. But with that said, despite the fact that I feel the Broadway-style shows of back then won't fit with the park anymore and that I'm content that they're gone, I will never, EVER deny the amazing talent that went in them that they end up being good shows in spite of themselves. Even the talent we have now, despite being messy as all get out, is still better than the "talent" brought on by You-Know-Who and his minions.
*sighs again, starts to feel better*
