Chicago

We finally got around to watching the movie version of Chicago the other night. I was surprised at how successful it was and how much I enjoyed it. I know that, nowadays, actors can get a lot of technical help when it comes to singing but Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere impressed me with the confidence of their singing and the way they seemed to be able to do something with the song.

But the element of the film that I enjoyed the most was the way that it returned the staging of the musical numbers to their Vaudeville roots. Kander and Ebb's original songs are each cast in the form of a particular genre of Vaudeville song, right through to Roxy Hart's husband's soft shoe shuffle, Mr Cellophane This is something that is completely ignored in the stage version current in London (originally staged by Bob Fosse I think) with its emphasis on what it likes to think is sexy choreography.

The film is not perfect, but I loved the way Rob Marshall blended the Vaudeville with the more naturalistic bits. It was pure film and would be impossible to do on stage, which was brilliant as a more stage bound production would not have worked so well.