Ryan's Reviews

Dracula the classic novel by Bram Stoker published in 1897 would appear to have all of the ingredients for a highly successful stage musical. Jonathan Harker who works as a solicitor is travelling on business in Transylvania to help facilitate the move of a mysterious character named Count Dracula. Dracula is shifting to London where he roams by night feasting on the blood of victims and turning them into the undead. It's up to Jonathan and his fiancée Mina and their good friends to stop the evil Count. What we have here, if you ask me, is a thrilling plot for a script, lending itself to a powerful and romantic score which could range from classical music and operetta to even rock. (There's a reason Jim Steinman writing the score for a musical about vampires seriously works. If you don't believe me, "Tanz der Vampire" has been performed throughout Europe since 1997.) Scenically, there's a great contrast between different locales, from the shadowy worlds of Tra...

If I had to name some of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century, well I wouldn't actually. I would turn around and just walk out of the room, open up the door, walk across the front yard and keep right on going all the way down the road to the nearest bus stop so I could get as far away from dodge as I possibly could. I'm not even going to begin contemplating answering that question. How could I? So many celebrated and talented artists have existed in the span of a century I don't even think it would be possible to really answer that question. And yet when you look at it from another angle, so far as I'm aware one of if not the greatest band of the twentieth century was the eight musicians who played on board the RMS Titanic. Yes. The band that played on until the very end which consisted of these eight gentlemen, a combination of the Violin, Cello and Piano Trio of Georges Krins, Roger Bricoux and William Brailey, and the Quintet with Bandmaster and Violinist ...

It never ceases to amaze me. The discography of Sir Elton John born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 27 March 1947 is one of the most expansive and impressive I’ve come across. I’m just going to fire off his albums here, if you don’t mind, since I think it bears repeating: Empty Sky (1969), Elton John and Tumbleweed Connection (1970), Madman Across the Water (1971), Honky Château (1972), Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973), Caribou (1974), Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy followed by Rock of the Westies (1975), Blue Moves (1976), A Single Man (1978), Victim of Love (1979), 21 at 33 (1980), The Fox (1981), Jump Up! (1982), Too Low for Zero (1983), Breaking Hearts (1984), Ice on Fire (1985), Leather Jackets (1986), Reg Strikes Back (1988), Sleeping with the Past (1989), The One (1992), Made in England (1995), The Big Picture (1997), Songs from the West Coast (2001), Peachtree Road (2004), The Captain & the Kid, a sequel to Captain Fantas...