Wales Millennium Centre – until 6 April 2019
Reviewed by Alex Browning
5*****
Motown the Musical is a heartfelt inside into the lives of the recording artists supported by the Motown record label, and Berry Gordy himself. With a fantastic set design and amazing costumes, this production is sure to make you move in your seat.
The opening of the show you are opened straight into a musical serenade by a group of young singers, then thrown into a brief whirlwind introduction in the life of Berry Gordy, played by Edward Baruwa, who starts the show with amazing vocals, which can only lead you to want more. Every member of the cast, who is slowly introduced shows an amazing vocal skill and all work together very nicely. The production cunningly uses LED screens to recreate a mixture of different settings, all in high quality and very believable, these screens move around to create the appropriate looking set. The way the acts have been chosen and the amazing vocals make you believe that all these music legends have come to meet in Cardiff and are performing a reunion for one night only, all the cast have been so accurately chosen that you wouldn’t want to change a thing.
Slowly you hear more and more of the upbeat classics we have all come to love and know and you are fully immersed into the lives of all the characters before a break into the interval.
During the second half of the musical we are introduced more heavily into the lives of Berry Gordy, (Edward Baruwa) and Diana Ross (Karis Anderson) the vocal dynamic of these two together is astonishing and the pair go on to create an amazing vibe together on stage, it is an amazing tale to unfold and is incredible to watch, I would have to say that Karis Anderson’s role of Diana Ross was the most spectacular acting and singing I have seen in a long time and brought chills to my spine, especially when the actress brought on an audience member in typical Ross fashion and maintained her role, whilst helping the chosen member to sing to the audience. It was a fantastic moment to witness and really felt like we were in Vegas watching Ms Diana Ross herself.
Followed by an amazing scene which gave us a flash run through all the top acts and hits that Motown was a part of left the audience singing along and wanting to dance.
Overall I would highly rate this performance and would absolutely love to see it again, and recommend this production to all ages, no matter how educated on the story of Motown you are you will extremely enjoy the performance by the end, especially with the big closing number the entire cast performed as the curtains dropped.