Reviews

Ghost: The Musical Playhouse

As a huge fan of the film, soundtrack and actors in the original film, I was delighted that "Ghost The Musical" was coming to The Edinburgh Playhouse. On the soundtrack “Unchained Melody” heralds the most recognisable part of the film and as it came to 'that scene' you could feel the whole audience holding their breath in the hope that it would be well executed, and that we would all feel the emotion of Molly Jenson (Rebecca Trehearn) missing her true love Sam Wheat (Stewart Clarke) and to judge by the ongoing clapping and cheering I wasn't the only one who wasn’t disappointed!

There are several iconic scenes in “Ghost”: the moment Sam is killed, the ghost train and then the moment Molly gets to see Sam before he crosses over to heaven. Every single moment in these scenes was special. I felt the director really captured the importance of these scenes.

However, I have to say that I felt the songs in this musical version that are not included in the original seemed out of place, and made it very easy to lose concentration. I appreciate it was never going to be a complete replica, but I felt that the repetition of those songs was unnecessary.

Wendy Mae Brown who played Oda Mae Brown was extremely funny and really got to grips with this well-known character, who was so memorably played by Whoopi Goldberg in the movie. She had the attitude, the comedy and when she was on stage you instantly felt comfortable with her in the role.

As Sam becomes a ghost and finds himself on a train already haunted by another “halfway ghost” there is a scene in the film where he is thrown off the train. Now as a stage production you would expect there to be something else in place of this, but here I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, this was the highlight of the show for me. The special effects used were amazing, there was lighting and screen projections to recreate the side of a train and it would have been very easy to leave it at that, but award-winning magician and illusionist Paul Kieve didn’t play it safe – he made it look like they were moving around the train. This show is absolutely worth seeing just to experience this alone.

As well as the effects used here, the actors played a great part in making the moment Sam goes into Oda Mae Browns’ body to dance with Molly extra special! They changed over so quickly that there were quite a few giggles in the audience as people tried to figure out “how they did it”.

Overall a great show that I would highly recommend both to fans of the original and even those who aren’t. You won’t be disappointed and you will most certainly shed a few tears.

Jodi Robertson