The Lord of the Rings

The performance by Michael Therriault who played Gollum and again plays him in the London production of Lord Of The Rings was breath taking in his ability to move, speak and create the same emotions to those of movie's animated version... he is worth the price of the ticket alone; however, keep reading..

The staging of this show is monumental and as a result completely over takes and dwarfs story trying to be told...the snippets of storyline are rushed together to produce an evening of wind, special effects, costuming and lighting that completely over shadows and obliterates the story it attempts to tell. The brief speeches and quick entrances and exists given by key characters trying to narrate the story along are not very audible due to loud music and other whirling winds and sound effects that drown out the text. If you already know the Lord of the Rings Trilogy well, you might be able to get by and forgive this Hollywood style approach; since you might be able to fill in the blanks on your own...otherwise be prepared for an evening of loud, windy effects that leave the watcher wondering who is who and what is what.

Perhaps the London production will realize where the Toronto one - that closed prematurely after poor sales and rather weak reviews - fell down and made drastic changes...I hope so for those of you who have already paid big bucks for your tickets!