{"id":158318,"date":"2024-07-09T17:20:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T07:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/?p=158318"},"modified":"2024-07-13T09:51:48","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T23:51:48","slug":"tina-the-tina-turner-musical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/tina-the-tina-turner-musical\/","title":{"rendered":"Tina: The Tina Turner Musical – theatre review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tina: The Tina Turner Musical takes audiences on an emotional rollercoaster, showcasing the extreme ups and even more extreme downs of her legendary career. She was in the music industry for many decades, from her glory Ike and Tina Turner days in the 1960s and \u201870s (at least performance-wise) to her being a \u2018has been\u2019 in her 40s after leaving Ike, then her triumphant rebirth with the trademark punky wig in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Images: Daniel Boud<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before and after the interval is almost like two different musicals. Anyone who knows at least some of Turner\u2019s life will be expecting scenes of violence from her abusive husband and musical partner, Ike Turner, but you do have to be prepared that it\u2019s regular and pretty graphic.<\/p>\n

Then after the singing star finally gets the courage to kick her abuser to the kerb at the end of Act One, there\u2019s welcome relief from those grittier aspects. Things culminate in a blow-the-roof-off finale as Ruva Ngwenya as the superstar sings three songs with a backing band, singers and dancers, getting the audience on their feet to dance along. It\u2019s exhilarating.<\/p>\n

Ngwenya is the backbone of the musical, of course. She\u2019s on stage just about all the time, and her voice is so effortlessly powerful and emotional that you just get taken along with her as she sings her heart out. She\u2019s got the Tina moves too, and stage charisma to burn.<\/p>\n

In the rather thankless role of Ike is Giovanni Adams, who successfully portrays the hateful man who takes all of his bitterness and frustrations out on his long-suffering wife. We hear a few very disturbing things about his own childhood and experiences with racism (with a few uses of the N-word) to give us some perspective about why he is the way he is, but of course there\u2019s no excuse for what he does to his wife and kids. In the second act, he\u2019s a small and pathetic man who no longer has Tina or the fame that came with being on stage with her.<\/p>\n

Special mention has to be made of the young girl who plays Tina as a child. Samara Wheeler is small in stature but has a huge and powerful voice. She\u2019s destined to be a star. The opening scene of her as Tina in church singing louder than anyone else is a brilliant start to the production.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Another difficult role is Zelma Bullock, Tina\u2019s mother, played by Ibinabo Jack. She\u2019s a hard woman who makes excuses for the violent men in these women\u2019s lives, even taking Ike\u2019s side a lot of the time. More sympathetic roles are Deni Gordon as Gran Georgeanna, and Nadia Komazec as Tina\u2019s loyal manager. And there are some big musical names making passing appearances such as wall-of-sound producer Phil Spector, and Aussie Roger Davies, who resurrected Turner\u2019s career with the song, What\u2019s Love Got To Do With It.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the musical numbers that audiences are there for and they are brilliant, including a gloriously glitzy version of Disco Inferno during Turner\u2019s Vegas days, and of course Nutbush City Limits and River Deep, Mountain High.<\/p>\n

Vicki Englund<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tina: The Tina Turner Musical takes audiences on an emotional rollercoaster, showcasing the extreme ups and even more extreme downs of her legendary career. She was in the music industry for many decades, from her glory Ike and Tina Turner days in the 1960s and \u201870s (at least performance-wise) to her being a \u2018has been\u2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":158368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[801],"tags":[28,124,470,38,590,8887],"class_list":["post-158318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theatre","tag-brisbane","tag-musical","tag-qpac","tag-theatre","tag-theatre-review","tag-tina-turner"],"yoast_head":"\nTina: The Tina Turner Musical - theatre review -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tina: The Tina Turner Musical takes audiences on an emotional rollercoaster, showcasing the extreme ups and even more extreme downs of her legendary career\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/tina-the-tina-turner-musical\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tina: The Tina Turner Musical - 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The Musical (Alex Theatre) – musical theatre review","author":"Alex First","date":"March 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Talent. Who has it and who doesn\u2019t? It is a word readily bandied about, but it is fair to say that talent gets down to the eye (and ear) of the beholder.\u00a0That is the subject at the centre of this absurdist, slapstick musical, first performed Off-Broadway in 1992.\u00a0It is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/rsz_ruthless_the_musical_-_28-02-24_188.jpg?fit=800%2C534&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/rsz_ruthless_the_musical_-_28-02-24_188.jpg?fit=800%2C534&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/rsz_ruthless_the_musical_-_28-02-24_188.jpg?fit=800%2C534&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/rsz_ruthless_the_musical_-_28-02-24_188.jpg?fit=800%2C534&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":149408,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/club-vegas-the-spectacle-touring-theatre-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":158318,"position":3},"title":"Club Vegas – The Spectacle (touring) – theatre review","author":"Alex First","date":"September 2, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Club Vegas is a fulsome variety show that would be quite at home on casino stages around the world.\u00a0It combines modern interpretations of hit songs with rolled gold classics and colourful, bejewelled, bedazzling costuming with feathered headdresses to die for.\u00a0Quite the spectacle. I couldn\u2019t get enough of it.\u00a0The dancers take\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rsz_120230901_161722-1.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rsz_120230901_161722-1.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rsz_120230901_161722-1.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rsz_120230901_161722-1.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":144232,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/legends-in-concert-the-palms-at-crown-theatre-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":158318,"position":4},"title":"Legends in Concert (The Palms at Crown) – theatre review","author":"Alex First","date":"January 17, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Energy and enthusiasm are the hallmarks of a slick tribute show to some of the greatest musical artists the world has seen.\u00a0Legends in Concert features tributes to Elton John (Stephen Sorrentino), Cyndi Lauper (Nellie Norris) and Cher (Lisa McClowry) before interval.\u00a0In the second act, it is Stevie Wonder (Tino Ibach),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_4975.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_4975.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_4975.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":163359,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/legends-in-concert-the-palms-at-crown-music-theatre-review-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":158318,"position":5},"title":"Legends in Concert (The Palms at Crown) – music theatre review","author":"Alex First","date":"January 12, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This all singing, all dancing, hit song fest just gets better and better, year after year. What a show! What a production! Elvis may have officially left the building, but Bill Cherry, for one, does a mighty job of looking and sounding like The King, who would have turned 90\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/rsz_1img_1284.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/rsz_1img_1284.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/rsz_1img_1284.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/rsz_1img_1284.jpg?fit=800%2C600&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}