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We went along to see Monkey. Journey to the West by Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn at London’s O2 Arena in North Greenwich last night.  We had seen a documentary earlier this year about the making of this new Opera and were fascinated by the creative process behind its making.  Having missed it playing in Manchester and being too busy to see it at the Royal Opera House in London we were pleased to have bagged a couple of tickets ahead of them being released to Joe public.  I’d listened to the Album some weeks ago and couldn’t quite buy into it.  I had therefore thought with the context of the show, it might all fit together and the penny would finally drop.  Unfortunately it didn’t really. The talent was obvious to see from the start both in the way the Opera had been written and the brilliant graphics used throughout.  The acrobatic players were themselves clearly excellent in what they do and could easily have being mistaken for a Cirque de Soleil cast.  However it never quite seemed to come together in a way that connected with the audience.  It was a bit like going to see Cirque de Soleil only without the gasps of awe and clapping from the audience you usually get when amazing feats of human acrobatics play out in front of you.  The audience at this show sat predominantly silent throughout.  The only time there was a connection was when the main character playing Monkey sat on the edge of the stage with another cast member, taking a sip of water and asking his colleague in English, if he wanted a drink; his colleague replying with another question about whether he wanted a smoke in return.  Monkey commenting “it’s England they don’t smoke here”, before returning to character and climbing back on stage.  A momentary burst of laughter from audience at this point reminded me there were several hundred people behind us watching the show.  The best scene played out in the second half of the show following the interval, when for a moment it nearly came together; the music, the acrobatics, the characters and the amazing graphics, but this soon passed and the ending came without much of a crescendo. We only knew to clap when the curtain started to fall.

An interesting experience all in all.  It was technically brilliant but unfortunately lacked any passion resulting in little connection between the players and the audience.  It was an Opera with high IQ but little by the way of EQ.

Pryordurkin rating. 3 Stars.