Review of Night On The Town, A

Introduction

A young couple are trying on costumes in a dingy costume shop. The owner known as "Mr Creepy" appears and in a Transylvanian accent invites them to admire themselves in the mirror.

They find they are transported to Berlin in 1933 and attend a night club. Viewing and taking part in many musical numbers the man meets a mysterious Countess(Elaine Paige) and finds himself falling in love. She hurries away and the young couple arrive in post war London where he meets the same woman (Paige) but this time she is English. A series of musical numbers from Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Noel Coward follow the couple through London, New York, New Orleans and Paris.

Amongst others this oddity features Frank Gorshin in a series of cameos. Frank is better known and hopefully remembered for his stint as The Riddler on Batman the TV series.

There is also an appearance by Tony award winner, Hinton Battle and if the name sounds familiar it`s because he plays Sweet, the singing demon in "Once More With Feeling" the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As he was covered in red latex in buffy and was unremarkable in this I`ve still got no idea what he looks like!

Video

This looks like it was made for television and is a video capture of fairly average quality. That`s being kind as it is pretty awful being representative of how cheap TV was out together in the 1980`s.

Audio

There are no problems with the sound reproduction but unfortunately not many of the singers do justice to the classic songs on offer. Only Elaine Paige and Eartha Kitt belt out their numbers making the others look amateurish.

Features

Cast biographies-say no more.

Conclusion

Come back Mr Benn! That was the last time anyone went into a costume shop and enjoyed the experience. This is a curious piece, made on a shoestring but happily featuring a younger Elaine Paige and an ageless Eartha Kitt It could have been much better. Surprisingly Lewis Collins acquits himself well but he is no singer and the mixture of amateur and professional shows.

Either go for the complete and costly professional show or do a Woody Allen and get non-singers to croon their pieces-the public are very forgiving, but this is neither one nor the other and fails abysmally.