Too much drag, not enough lift
After the many pleasures of Parade at the Donmar Warehouse, I headed across town with my friend (via a tasty burger) to see the final performance of Take Flight at the Menier Chocolate Factory. This was another venue I’d never visited (fab building), and again I had not seen anything by the composer-lyricist team of David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr before. This show is based on the stories of aviation pioneers the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, all pulled together by narration from the less successful Otto Lillienthal.
As you may guess from the title of this post, I wasn’t particularly thrilled as I watched this particular show. There were moments when it almost took off, but it didn’t seem to be able to stay airborne. It wasn’t bad, as such, and was nowhere near the low standards of an operatic version of the Roswell Incident I once saw, but it wasn’t really very good either. I shall now try to steer clear of aviation puns, though I am not the only person writing about the show who has found that difficult.
The Singing Librarian Talks 