It's really safe to say that Frozen is perhaps one of if not Disney's biggest animated franchise and the fact that it's only got two films to it does show that Disney is more then willing to take there time to get the next film right. However the franchise does have a stage show with the company just releasing a filmed version of the London West End version of the show and well you all just knew that yours truly had to check out this filmed version of the show the very first chance that I got and so then join me as I review the stage show that proves that even with nothing more then just two theatrically released movies and a handful of specials Frozen really is here to stay with the stage show in question being called simply just "Frozen: The Hit Broadway Musical" enjoy.
The plot of this stage show is when her sisters powers accidentally put there home town of Arendelle in the middle of a deadly snowstorm it's up to Anna and her new friends Kristoff , Sven and Olaf to try and convince her sister to set things right before it's far to late. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very stage show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very stage show was in all honesty really good which is something that does make alot of sense as it's literally just the first films plot only now it's being told in the form of a stage show and not a film with the plot translating surprisingly well from screen to stage with there not really being any changes to the plot of the show which is something that could make seeing this stage show seem pointless as afterall why would you want to see the same story when you can just see the original story told in the way that you know it to be which would be a fair point but at the same time tho this plot is one that does hold up really well with the stage show not only containing all of the key themes that made the plot of the film work but adding just enough to them that it makes those themes seem fresh and new all other again something that Disney did try to do in there live action remakes but failed because they did them so bad there but here what they do add to those themes oddly work well enough in the shows for with the plot of this stage show also being really rather entertaining and as swell as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this stage show is Samantha Barks as Elsa , Laura Dawkes as Anna and Craig Gallivan as Olaf. Also starring in this stage show is Jammy Kasongo as Kristoff , Oliver Ormson as Hans , Richard Frame as The Duke Of Weselton , Ashley Birchall as Sven , Mikayla Jade as Sven , Martha Bailey Vine as Young Anna , Elizabeth Lyons as Young Elsa , Tabitha Storton as The Hidden Folk Child , Ben Irish as Pabbie and The Ensemble , Lizzy-Rose Esin-Kelly as Bulda and The Ensemble , Jak Skelly as Oaken , Bishop and The Ensemble , Jacqui Sanchez as Queen Iduna and The Ensemble and Ashley J. Daniels as King Agnarr and The Ensemble.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very stage show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that thew actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very stage show was in all honesty really good. With this shows acting being alot more better then what it really had any right to be as by all rights this shows acting should have been really bad but for one reason or another this shows actors really just hit it out of the park with all of them giving us some really top notch acting with the same thing also being true for the shows kid actors as well as they come across as bein quite natural when they very easily could have been seen as being quite annoying with that especially being true for Martha Bailey Vine who is quite honestly one of the more entertaining actors in this show as even tho she only plays the young version of Anna she manages to get lots of big laughs every single time that she's on stage with the shows best actor being Samantha Barks as Elsa if you've seen either the stage version of the 2012 film version of Les Misérables then you'll know just how good of an actor that Samantha Barks can be and she really knocks it out of the park in this show from both an acting point of view and a singing point of view with the acting that's really in this very show really being helped by the fact that this shows script is just so good that all this shows shows actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very show.
To be frank there are times when during this stage show it does look cinematic which is something that does work to the shows advantage. As it does show that the creative team behind the show did put in alot of effort into making this world come to life and the fact that they don't quite give away just how it was that they managed to pull off alot of the effect for Elsa's powers outside the use of LED screens only helps to make the show look more cinematic as does the fact that they manage to get some shots that would have been quite hard to do with a live audience there which is something that does work against the show as this show was meant to have been filmed live and yet they are getting shots that make this look like a feature length film which is great if your trying to make a film but here what they should have been doing is trying to put across the experience of what watching this show live is like and not going out of there way to make it look like a film and heck they even have a scene transition effect for when Elsa's dress is revealed at the end of "Let It Go" which don't get me wrong does look good but at the same time tho it would have been nice to see just how they would have pulled that off as that is something that they could have done for real just by having the actor ware the dress underneath another one of Elsa's costumes which you can then just her very easily snap that dress off to reveal her dress which is something that wouldn't work for a film but it's something that would have felt right at home in a stage show which makes you wonder why they chose to add in a scene transition effect there as it is something that's kind of distracting and while it doesn't take away from the experience it is odd that they added it in there tho.
Whilst this particualr version of the show is billed as a version of the broadway show it's actually a filmed version of the West End show. Which is way all of the shows actors are from that show and it's something that makes you wonder why Disney would market it as being a a filmed version of the broadway show when there alot more people that not only know that London exists but also know of London West End as well but at the same time tho they might just be borrowing the tagline of the original broadway show which I guess does make sense but at the same time given that this version was made because of the fact that the West End version was closing up shop three years after it first premiered wouldn't it make more sense just to called this filmed version Frozen: The Musical but with that little nit pick aside this show does sadly not have that many main sets when compared to even the original film which granted didn't have that many main sets either but they still somehow managed to make the world of Arendelle both look and feel alot more bigger then what it really was and here with this show it has the opposite effect as it makes this world feel alot more smaller and compact now to be fair tho this could be for a practical reason as the show does have a rather small stage and so to hit on alot of sets plus all of the actors would have been a huge ask but given that the show was already using some LED screens around the edges of the set of Elsa's powers anyway they usually could have done the same thing and have some new sets just to help the world of Arendelle feel alot more bigger then what it already is in the first place.
As for how they managed to do some of the films animals and Olaf this is wear they kind of get creative as Sven is literally just to people in a reindeer suit and the rock people are now just people which is great as there's no way that you could do those characters on a stage show budget. However it's how they do Olaf that's the most interesting as they take the same approach that was perfected in The Lion King musical where the character is basically a puppet here designed to look like his animated counterpart with a live actor behind him both controlling the character and voicing him which does look really good as it does allow for Olaf to have those really wide range of emotions on his face be it joy to even sadness of confusion and those are things that would have been lost if you did the character in any other way as the only way that you can do this character in a stage show format is to keep him in his snowman form as that's what the audience would expect him to look like and so you can't really do what they did with the live action Spongebob musical and have all of the characters be humans as that just wouldn't work for Olaf given the fact that he's meant to be a snowman and to be fair tho the actors in the show do have alot of fun with it with them even having the actor who plays Anna control the head of Olaf for one brief scene during the shows second act with even the actor playing him Craig Gallivan quite clearly having a blast playing him with the only thing that lets down this way of doing the character being the fact that we don't get to see Elsa making him during the "Let It Go" song sequence which is a small thing but it's also something that does show that she can create life with her powers even if she doesn't quite realise it yet.
As is to be expected this show is a musical with songs of course written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez with their being one new song written for the show being written by Christophe Beck and Frode Fjellheim. With the show featuring all of the songs from the original film alot of which are done really well but at the same time they are out of order in what they appear in the original film so like now example "Let It Go" happens after "In Summer" rather then it bein the other way around and while it would be super easy to say that "Let It Go" is the best song in the whole just due to how fantastic that Samantha Barks sings it the best song in the show is actually one of the newer songs that being "Colder By The Minute" just because of the fact that it's an excellent ensemble song that brings together alot of the characters and ties them all together rather beautifully but that song was very closely followed by "Dangerous To Dream" as that song just hit home the sisterly bond that both Anna and Elsa had for each other and that Elsa still carries for Anna even tho she can't really say it due to her own fears of loosing control of her powers with alot of this shows newer songs not only complimenting the films original songs really well but also being able to stand out on their own and while it was quite hard to say what the best song of the show is because there's so many that could take claim to that honor there's only one that's the worst song of the show and that's "Hygge" as it's just a pointless comedy song that's only there to given Oaken something to do and that's really it and even as a comedy song it still doesn't work as we've literally just had one in "In Summer" so it was really pointless to have "Hygge" in this show.
Now then this show has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and fifty one minuets and forty two seconds. Which to be fair is a pretty solid running time for this show to have as the show does have the right amount of plot there to cover that amount of running time and while this show really doesn't cover that running time all that widely as it doesn't develop it's plot or characters all that well it very well could be argued that it really doesn't need to develop either the plot of the characters due to both of them being so well known anyway or in the case of the plot quite literally just being the first films plot only now it's told on a theater stage and not on the big screen but at the same time tho if your going to go to the trouble to not only include new scenes with the parents and Young Elsa and Young Anna and include a bunch of new songs then you might as well go the extra mile and take the time that you needed to take to further develop your plot as while yes the plot of the show was covered really well in the film here you have the chance to include things that didn't make it into the film and to show us new plot beats that we perhaps hadn't quite considered yet with the same thing also being true for the shows characters and while they don't come across as being one dimensional characters with them all being as well written as they were in the movie given the fact that the show does have extra songs in there then the makers of the show could have taken the time to add new things to the characters like for example they show us that Anna is a bit quirky and that Elsa is very stand-offish but they both still love each other but that's all we get to find out about there characters and even then those came more from the film then they do the stage show but I really will admit that this show really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is comedy that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good. With the actor that played Young Anna getting alot of laughs every single time that she was on the stage as she was just that funny and while Olaf could be seen as being annoying alot of the time in the film here he's around just long enough to get in a few decent jokes and while his big "Some People Are Worth Melting For" scene doesn't have that big of an impact in this show just because of the fact that they can't actually show him starting to melt the character still does get a few decent laughs every now and then with it actually being quite hard to say just what the best joke in the show is as both Young Ann and Anna herself do get some decent jokes in this show with really the only two characters that don't manage to get some good laughs or Kristoff and Elsa and that's really it with alot of what makes Anna funny in this show being what always made her funny in the film and that's the fact that she's this quirky character who hasn't been around people for years and so she has now idea on how to act around them but if push did come to shove i'd say that the best joke in the whole entire show is the very fact that Anna only recognizes Olaf from the fact that she gave him a big backside which whilst it is a dumb joke it one that works really well because of the fact that the set up with Young Anna was also really well done as well with all of this films jokes being just straight up really good and really funny in there special and unique way as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall this show was a shockingly fun time and this is coming from someone who actively avoided the original film when it first came out but has since seen both it and it's sequel and all of the specials as well with this show being sure to not only set people over until Frozen III in 2027 but also please them as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very show in this review and as such that really does mean that this very show really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly an 8.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review rom the official Disney fandom wiki page , IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very review being the really great the official Disney fandom wiki page really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very episode with really alot of them being really better quality then what you'd really think of and really all of the images are really of course up and really on the official Disney fandom wiki page are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.