To begin with, a note of caution. Don’t go to see the show ‘Magic Mike Live’ expecting you are going to see a faithful stage adaptation of the hit 2012 movie. Channing Tatum has been involved with both productions. Tatum starred in the movie directed by Steven Soderbergh, based on his experiences as an 18 years old stripper in Florida. Tatum has both written and directed this theatrical production which bears little resemblance to the film apart from it also exploring the same world of striptease and hunky men with the character Magic Mike again being the centrepiece.
The show’s plot revolves around the female emcee who selects one guy from a large group of dancers to teach him about the ways of love, how to seduce a woman and make them love you forever. The guy just happens to be Magic Mike.
The emcee, together with Magic Mike, are the show’s two main characters. Amy Ingram and Blake Varga were great in the roles.
The emcee has a spirit that she always goes to in her life, the mythological unicorn. The unicorn is her safe place. As well, she makes it the safe place for the audience. Whenever a woman from the audience has one of the male dancers gyrating in front of them and she doesn’t feel comfortable, all they have to say is the word unicorn and the dancer will stop and move on.
Let’s move on from the plot now any way, because it really is a vehicle for what the show is really about, a celebration of incredibly agile and well built young men, who are also incredible dancers, for the women in the audience to ogle, swoon and get horny over. Like men have been smitten for over centuries, aeons, with ridiculously well proportioned, sexy women, now it is the womens turn to do the very same ogling, perving, salivating.
As a spectacle ‘Magic Mike Live’ works really well. There’s a great energy, the dancing is tremendous, and the staging is excellent with the dancers expanding out from the main stage area to use vantage points from around the wonderful Arcadia Spiegeltent to make their moves
A few of the highlights. A very erotic dance performed by one of the male dancers with a female ‘ring in’ from the audience, as rain poured down on them…A platform slowly descending from the roof with one of the dancers banging away at the drums.
There was always music, loud, pulsating, mainly dance music with a few ballads, rather oddly, thrown in the mix.
The light show was terrific, awesome.
Quite the experience.
‘Magic Mike Live’ is taking bookings for the Spiegeltent, the Entertainment Quarter up until the end of April 2021.