Tina's Masquerade Bawl!

Soul Sister is a contradictory 'musical' if I may dare call it that.

On the one hand it is a production for the Facebook generation with all its digital gadgetry whilst, on the other, it tells the story of a woman who was strutting her stuff long before most of them had been conceived in the 1970's power cuts!

This juke box conception (forgive the continuing pun) - penned for profit more than art - sits somewhere between a concert and a musical. Fun, interesting and foot tapping, but not quite for me.

I remember the day when the stage was sacrosanct and no-one crossed that imaginary line called the proscenium arch, not the audience or the players, except on rare occasions. Nay, I remember the day when I first saw the Rocky Horror Show and was blown away by this 'new' musical. Then it became a cult and now it is impossible to 'watch' without a barrage of rice, water and fluid like substances passing overhead!

Sadly, for me, the new generation of musicals pander to the modern audience's need to whoop and cry at every turn. When Tina Turner - played wonderfully by Emi Wokoma - finally rounds on long time husband Ike - played by the equally talented Chris Tummings - they all cheered like an X Factor audience endorsing Simon Cowell's decision. Where has that healthy sense of voyeurism gone? We're present but they (the actors) don't know it?

All said there were some wonderful, enthusiastic performances last night and, if you want your spirits raised, then Soul Sister will send you home with the modern feel good factor that Easter Parade gave to the Garland / Astaire groupies of the 1940's.

However, if you like to enjoy your theatre from a seated position be prepared to be disappointed because, in the second half, Soul Sister is largely a 'concert', rolling out a parade of Turner songs to which the audience is eventually invited to stand and dance along.

But, before I slip further into Victor Meldrew's pit of cynicism, I have to say that the scene changes were absolutely superb and slicker than a teddy boy's brylcreem quiff.

And the 'digital' backdrops featuring video, stills, 3d imagery and news clips of JFK, Martin Luther King and Elvis Presley, were not only magnificent, but played a large part in telling the Ike and Tina Turner story.

But that was also their weakness. Why is there an increasing need to spoon feed audiences, to explain every inch of the plot? Are we now dumbing down theatre in order to accommodate the 'fly-on-the-wall' generation? Be inventive, be clever, by all means, but let the story do some of the work!

Some of the US accents were slightly iffy and, as Madame Turner yelled to the Bradford audience - supposedly her admirers at a gig in Ghana - and said: "Hello, are you out there?" (cue cheer), I thought someone was going to yell, "yes luv, I'm over 'ere. Nah gerron wi' it!"

It was a dynamic and, at times, dramatic show which Turner fans and gig goers will love.

Indeed it left me longing for the day when we can have an interactive Hamlet. The audience can be invited to 'get involved' (perhaps by Laertes), and as the nutty Prince is about to stab Polonius (they'll get 'nutty'), the audience can be asked to vote on whether he should die behind the arras, or just get a kick up the arras! Now that would be a worthy evolution of theatre. RSC, are you listening?

Runs until Saturday 25th May