Mamma Mia! is a musical based around the songs of ABBA, It first
opened at the Prince Edward Theatre in 1999 and later transferred to the Prince
of Wales Theatre in 2004. The musical will be moving to its third home in
September to the Novello Theatre. A film version of the musical starring
Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Amanda Seyfried and many more Hollywood names was released in 2008 and is
the UKs highest ever grossing film.
The story follows Sophie, who is getting
married to her Fiancé Sky, She wants her father to be present at her wedding but
she doesn't know who he is. She steals her mother's diary and reads the
entries from the time when she was conceived and she finds out she has three
possible dads. She invites them all to the wedding and when her mother,
Donna, finds out they are all at her hotel she goes mad! The production is
directed by Phyllida Lloyd who does a brilliant job at working with the set
which was designed by Mark Thompson, the set is two white curved walls that move
around to create different locations. This clever piece of design makes the
production for me; too much set would have ruined this musical so Marks designs
work brilliantly within this show. Howard Harrison also produced a fantastic
lighting design in this show; it worked remarkably with the other design aspects
of the production. Although the design is very simple, it's perfect.
Something that people often don't think about when watching this production is
how such a simple design could work as great as it did.
