Club Tropicana At The Opera House Manchester

Ok, before I start this review of Club Tropicana at the Opera House Manchester I want to say that theatre is objective. So just because I love something does not mean the next person will.

A great example of this is my recent review of Hair The Musical. It blew my mind on so many levels. Yet a theatre goer was very sharp with me a couple of weeks later, when she took great pleasure in telling me I was wrong and it was rubbish. But how can someone tell me I was wrong for liking something? I could have argued she was wrong for not liking it.

I am sure you can guess where I am leading here, I didn’t love Club Tropicana. However was surrounded by a theatre full of love for the production. So who is right them or I? Or maybe no one, we are just all entitled to enjoy exactly what we want to.

If anything the fault is mine, if I had spent time to really read what it was about I would have known this is not one for me. However I was dazzled by a catchy title, my love of Wham and a rose tinted nostalgia of the 80s. When in fact the show is an incredibly funny slapstick look at the 80s, portraying an awful lot of what was wrong and crude about the era.

But I don’t do slapstick, it grates me on so many levels, to the point Chris often rolls his eyes at me. Films like Aeroplane and The Mask that have people howling with laughter fail to raise laughter in me at all. I just don’t get it its not my humour. And don’t get me started on Benidorm it makes me cringe and roll my eyes!

However the audience around me were howling! To the point that some people were almost crying and found it hard to recover between scenes, and were also singing along to all the songs. Tbh I think some of the audience voices added to my pain. Omg how miserable do I sound?

As I say, it was me not the show! I knew that 10 minutes in. There was a lot that did make me smile. Joe McElderry’s portrayal of Garry was adorable and could not fail to make you smile. He had the audience in hysterics from walking onto the stage. They hung off his every word.

Emily Tierney played a fabulous love struck Christine, her voice was beautiful, all of the cast had incredible voices. And Rebecca Mendoza was blooming amazing as Tracey that friend we all had in the 80s, she was brilliant.

However the stand out highlight of the show for me was Kate Robbin’s Consuela, she started with an understated hilarity that grew and grew as the show progressed. She had much of the audience in tears, and despite not being a fan of this type of comedy she was hilarious. Some people only have to move to raise a smile and she is certainly one of those people.

So yes don’t take my word for it, as a reader you will know what I love, I totally set myself up to fail here. However I have friends who I know would have been screaming from the rooftops how amazing it was. As I looked around the Opera House last night I was most certainly in the minority.

Club Tropicana is showing at the Opera House until Saturday the 8th June, if you love slapstick comedy then like 95% of the theatre last night you will be weeping in your seat.

I was gifted the tickets for an honest review.