It's an experience you're not likely to forget anytime soon.
Never have more truer words been spoken.
Watching the thrilling, megawatt-ignited National Touring edition of "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical" connect with pretty much every single person in the audience is just one of the many joys of this hypnotic British musical which, originally, got its start in London's West End back in 2018 and debuted on Broadway one year later only to be suspended in March 2020 by the COVID 19 pandemic and resume New York performances in October 2021.
Five years later - now on tour and still playing in London at the Aldwych Theatre - the spotlight continues to shine on Tina Turner with no chance of slowing down anytime soon.
"Tina: The Tina Turner Musical" thrives on that very notion.
As musical theatre, it's in a class by itself.
The production itself draws you in with seductive, brilliantly formulated theatricality.
It's moving. It's emotional. It's uplifting. It's heartfelt.
The music solidifies the range, dynamic and emotion of the story.
The staging surges with electricity and impassioned explosion.
The concert vibe created night-after-night before an excited, appreciative crowd erupts with confidence, rush and impressive conclusion.
Everyone - principals, supporting cast members, ensemble - is exactly right for the roles they are asked to portray.
The entire production is a masterclass in musical theatre.
It is also executive produced by Tina Turner herself and her current husband Erwin Bach.
She wouldn't have it any other way.
Music, heartache, violence, domestic abuse, parental abandonment, prejudice, bad career choices, first love, waiting for the big break, touring, pop chart dominance, following your heart, crossing over - all that and more is part of the music legend's story.
Trying to make sense of it all, writers Katori Hall, Kees Prins and Frank Ketelaar fill the two-act musical with useful, challenging and interesting fragments from the singer's life that adapt nicely to the show's page-turning musical format.
It's all here: her early childhood years as Anna-Mae Bullock; her marriage to the hot-headed, abusive, womanizing Ike Turner; the birth of two sons, one of whom was the result of a romantic fling with a musician other than Ike; traveling the R&B and soul circuit in the mid-1960s; achieving moderate success in Europe during the 1970s but not in America; ending her marriage to Ike Turner; building a career with Australian record producer Roger Davies by her side; her pursuit of rock music; meeting music executive Erwin Bach who after 27 years of courtship became her husband; the European release of "Let's Stay Together" and "Private Dancer;" the recording of her first #1 single "What's Love Got to Do with It?" a song she absolutely hated to perform; her major comeback at the 1985 Grammy Awards.
Highs and lows aside, "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical" also comes replete with grim, not-so-pretty reminders about what it meant to be a black recording artist in the 1960's, from prejudiced commentary from white business executives to being denied hotel accommodations because of skin color or being subjected to the frequent use of the N-word. It's all inked and dotted accordingly with details, truths, observations and upsetting, hurtful moments interspersed between the production's vast, important musical numbers.
Billed as a "jukebox biographical musical," "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical" features song hits from the singer's own repertoire mixed with popular songs from the decades to portray her early childhood years in Tennessee and beyond to her eventual rise to stardom as music legend and award-winning rock star.
The songs - eclectic, driven, dynamic, exhilarating - give the story its pulse, set up and shout out, making everything that happens feel relevant and important to the accessible, traveling narrative.
They are (in order of performance): "Etherland -Sound of Mystic Law," "Nutbush City Limits," "Don't Turn Around," "Shake a Tail Feather," "The Hunter," "Rocket 88/ Matchbox," "She Made My Blood Run Cold," "It's Gonna Work Out Fine," "A Fool in Love," "Let's Stay Together," "Better Be Good to Me," "I Want to Take You Higher," "River Deep Mountain High," "Be Tender with Me Baby," "Proud Mary," "I Don't Wanna Fight," "Private Dancer," "Disco Inferno," "Open Arms," "I Can't Stand the Rain," "Tonight," "What's Love Got to Do with It?" "Don't Turn Around (reprise)," "We Don't Need Another Hero," "(Simply) The Best," "Finale: Nutbush City Limits (reprise), "Proud Mary (reprise)."
Flowing together with cemented revolution, liberation and major-key uplift, the songs themselves are assured and fitful, paraded in grand fashion and retreat, thus, fueling and complementing the legend herself and her complicated, sharpened, full-force musical biography. Music director/conductor Anne Shuttleworth ("Les Misérables," "Miss Saigon," "Jesus Christ Superstar") brings rhythmic extremity, flux and punch to the musical score, adapting a free-flowing, exhilarating orchestral style that befits the production's concert-like aura, its nostalgia undercurrents, its jukebox sound and its flavorful beats and percussions.
The conducting itself - bright, attractive, upbeat - keeps the musical afloat for its almost three-hour running time, all of which is fleshed and flung out with tremendous commitment, line and achievement. Vocally, the cast is in fine voice under Shuttleworth's tutelage giving rise to an epic musical journey of great style, tone and tremendous vocal energy.
The National Touring edition of "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical" is helmed by British-born Phyllida Lloyd who directed both the original London and Broadway incarnations of the popular musical. No stranger to theatre, her directorial achievements include "Mamma Mia!" "La Boheme," "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," "The Duchess of Malfi" and "Mary Stuart." Here, she crafts a pungent, consistent musical concert and biography that duly captures the persona of Tina Turner herself, her music, her private life, her success and her refusal to give up even when the cards were completely stacked against her.
The action, the story, the music, the mood swings and the shifting of scenery (the atmospheric set design by Mark Thompson is magnificent) is seamlessly kicked into gear by Lloyd whose staging style and technique complement the proceedings, its thematic flow, its passages of time and place, its live performance vibe, its biographical concept and the high-voltage mini concert at the end of Act II that gets everyone lathered up for the big finish and the standing ovation that quickly follows. It's everything you'd expect from a musical of this caliber and so much more.
Zurin Villanueva, the dynamic actress-singer who shares the lead role of Tina Turner with Ari Groover, channels the music legend's energy, song style, leggy persona and rangy wickedness with such superstar confidence and bravura, the real Turner would surely applaud her performance and participation in this production. As both actress and singer, she is persuasive and emotional, intuitively rising to the demands of the role musically and physically. She not only carries the show, but with a voice and range much like Tina Turner herself, she is truly magnificent.
Handsome, charismatic and completely in touch with his suave, leading man looks, Garrett Turner eases into the part of Turner's manipulative, abusive singer/husband with seriousness, rage, centeredness and chauvinistic standpoint. It's an important role and one he plays to the hilt, showing both the good and bad side of his character, his attraction to women and his need to be the center of attention regardless of the consequences.
Other standout performances are delivered by Ayvah Johnson as Young Anna-Mae, Roz White as Zelma, Lael Van Keuren as Rhonda, Parris Lewis as Alline, Carla R. Stewart as Gran Georgeanna and Max Falls as Erwin Bach.
As musicals go, "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical" is a showstopper of incident, emotion, excitement and roar.
It's a great theatrical experience. The story is grounded in reality. It matches the energy of the iconic diva it celebrates. The music sizzles and zigzags through the decades. The performances are hot and steamy. And for those who buy a ticket, the payoff is boundless with jackpot proportions.
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