Sheer Fun

We took the girls last night to watch the performance of Mamma Mia at Marina Bay Sands expecting to have a really good time and were not disappointed. The sense of expectation was based on the fact that we'd watched the film some time back and very much enjoyed it, and an evening listening to Abba songs played live can never be considered wasted. It's been a few years since we exposed Fifi and Fafa to Abba's Greatest Hits in one of our holiday breaks in KL, but once listened to that level of pop genius cannot be forgotten.

The show fulfilled all expectations: unpretentious, cheesy, energetic, cheerfully daft fun. The only cloud on the horizon initially was the relatively small audience - only about a quarter or so of the seats were filled. And I did wonder if this might take some of the oomph out of the performers. But they turned out to be super troopers, emitting enough energy to light up a city and its hinterland. And it was clear that a fair number of those in the audience had, rightly, come prepared to have a noisy good time come what may. And so they did. (Oddly enough my experience of school shows is that this size of audience often delivers a stronger sense of all-out engagement than a full house.)

One slightly more serious point. The music had been lovingly arranged, keeping all of the structural and harmonic detail of the original such that the sophistication behind the superficial simplicity of the music was rendered dazzlingly clear. Just to mention one piece: the gorgeous density of the harmonies in Super Trooper stunned this listener, even though he's heard them hundreds of times. Whatever you think of Abba - and I was no great fan when they were dominating the charts, being way too cool for anything so straightforwardly popular - this is craftsmanship of the highest order.