THUNDER BAY: We called it an invasion for good reason. It was groovy, it was hip. Seriously sexy in a massively contagious way. Across the pond audiences reacted to the beat and the best of music flooding out of Britain in the ’60s like a happily drowning cult. We couldn’t get enough; still can’t.
Magnus opens its 2019-2020 season in the city next week with an absolute shooting-star sparkler of a show titled, what else, Shout! The internationally acclaimed musical pays tribute to female artists who swept the charts on both sides of the ocean with much more than their shimmy of hips and alluringly frosted lips. These ladies had something to say; still do.
Now, let’s admit it, from time to time everyone needs advice. The trick is to heed the good kind, dismiss the rest. So what could be better for getting the word out than an advice column in a popular magazine everyone sees and reads? Forget what mother told you; or, listen to her instead. Up to you; and you don’t have to sign your real name. If you want, you can choose to be one of those psychedelic colours in the disco-ball above the dance-floor.
Consequently, Thunder Bay Source meets with Miss Yellow and another luscious young lady calling herself Orange. One look into sunny bright eyes and I know Orange is in love with everything in her world.
“Myles.” She sighs, flutters turquoise eyelids. “We met at the discotheque, actually. We have two-point-seven adorable children and,” she gushes, “I’m so happy with Gwendolyn Holmes’ tidbits; she’s got all this mod stuff in Shout magazine about how to live my life to the fullest. As a wife and a mother,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.
In character actor Dharma Bizier tells me husband “froogs” like no other man she’s ever met. She demonstrates a sinewy dance move.
As soon as she hears the beat, Miss Yellow jauntily walks forward. Actor Tiera Watts’ demeanour is, if anything, even sunnier than a ripe orange. I can see she, too, is love-struck.
“I’m from Cinncinati. Ohio.” She pumps my hand. “I came to England to meet and marry the love of my life, Paul McCartney.”
I ask how it’s going. “We’ve met. Well almost. I’ve been within a thousand yards of him. So I’m hopeful. How? Oh, it’ll be all the things: my wits, my looks. I’m the girl who is going to stand out to him in the crowd. I just know it’s gonna happen!”
Miss Yellow’s own advice for women-with-a-dreamboat in their sights, anyone other than Paul of course, is to pick a tall tree with thick, high branches. “That way you’ll have better access to upper levels of the house.”
Thom Currie, Magnus’ director of Shout! The Mod Musical, muses on why the fabulous female hits of the ’60s are still sounding so true today in 2019.
“Women over the decades continue to have a central role in society. They can decide who they are, instead of being told what they should be; all and ever alive within the wonderful music of the ’60s.”
Shout! runs from Sept. 12 to Oct. 5.
-- By Linda Maehans, for tbnewswatch.com
