'Motown: The Musical' Shaftesbury Theatre ****

Berry Gordy Jr did revolutionise the music landscape forever as well as how the general public treated black musicians due to the fact that racism was colossally larger than racism is today and this is all thanks to the genre of music that is Motown. The West End production of Berry Gordy Jr’s 2013 musical, ‘Motown: The Musical’ was a phenomenally stimulating tale of how Motown radically transformed the music industry and as such has inspired the music acts of today, additionally, the offerings were outstanding throughout.

‘Motown: The Musical’ commences in 1983 where famous signers are brought together to celebrate Mowtown Records’ 25^th Anniversary, however, we are transported back the 1950’s and acquainted  with Berry Gordy Jr who is meeting with Smoky Robinson and his bandmates from ‘The Matadors’ where Gordy says that they have to rename their group to ‘The Miracles’ to make an impact. He soon launces his own record label in 1959 called Motown Records in Detroit from money he inherited and because of this a musical juggernaut was born. Over the course of the performance, Gordy goes on a search for more artists and signs such groups and solo performers like;  The Marvelettes, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas to increase his catalogue of pop stars.  As the show progresses along, Gorky’s label Motown Records begins to become increasingly popular with listeners and when it is revealed that the artsts are in fact black, some racist comments obviously materialise.  Throughout the course of the 1960’s, Motown Records’ music dominates the Billboard Charts and in this moment of jubilation, we see that The Supremes’ lead singer, Diana Ross and Gordy are in a relationship and noticeably the cracks are forming  and this is only because of Gordy’s behaviour and it only gets worse when Diana goes solo. With the popularity of Motown increasing daily, numerous artists such as; The Jackson 5 sign up to the label and in the background, Gordy has been experiencing changes to the music that is produced and written when song writing/production team, Holland-Dazier- Holland AKA, ‘H-D-H’ dispense of their services to Motown which in turn leads to Gordy taking them to court because of breaches to their agreed contract. The 1970’s shows a slight decline in popularity especially in the late 1970’s and in the 1980’s, Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye decide that it is time to leave Motown and find other labels to work with and the music mogul begins to become despondent with his work and life in general. This is displayed by the fact that he is apprehensive to turn up to the 25^th Anniversary, nonetheless and at the finale, Gordy’s former flame and former star, Diana Ross nudges him along and he does make an appearance to the party which basically is a thank you to Gordy as he modernised not only the music industry but attitudes towards the black and ethnic communities all over the rest of the developed world. Gordy’s narrative is particularly excellent as we get to the rise and fall of Gordy himself from music magnate to a depressed mess and even though some may find the narrative a bit pretentious as Gordy has written the show himself, I find that there is nothing wrong with the show being a little aloof. And with such musical numbers e.g. “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”, “Singed Sealed Delivered”, “Dancing In The Street” and “I’ll Be There” did make you want to dance in the aisles as they are tunes we do know mostly lyric by lyric.

One found the performances by the company of, ‘Motown; The Musical’ to be luminously spiffing as the vocal abilities and chorographic sequences were categorically gripping and spellbinding actually and a cast of mostly black performers suggest that there was a true representation of the black community on stage. Cedric Neal is wonderful as central protagonist, Berry Gordy Jr; mainly how similar he is to the real Gordy himself and his persona of the character has enabled me to delve deeper into who Gordy was a man and a businessman who wanted a minority community to triumph in a creative industry that was dominated by white music. Lucy St Louis is fabulous as the music icon that is Diana Ross; specially in how we again like Gordy, we see how Diana proved herself to be a terrific performer and how hard it must have been to be in a relationship with not only a colleague but her boss too and her vocals in Ross’ numbers were remarkable. Obioma Ugoala is grand as Gordy’s first music signing, Smokey Robinson; for example how with the initial meeting with Gordy in 1957, a musical giant was born and the music scene was changed forever but for the good and I found the performer himself conveyed the brutal and cutthroat moments that happens in music. Sifiso Mazibuko is blissful as the sensational and smouldering singer, Marvin Gaye; predominantly how we see that he and Gordy had a rather pleasant and loving friendship and the two of them supported each other through the tough and amazing times and it is truly upsetting when he decides to leave Motown and in less than two years he was murdered by his own father for strange reasons.  

Charles Randolph-Wright’s direction is gloriously magnificent here as he has been able to bring us the audience into the music label Motown Records and focussing in on Berry Gordy’s journey of fame and fortune and the characterisations were comprehensive throughout and with the fabulous choreography by Patricia Wilcox and Warren Adams we are transfixed by music and sparkles that Motown was and is still popular even to this day.  David Korins’ set design and Esosa’s costume designs were extraordinary as the finest details from the set to the costumes brought an abundances of sparkle and glitter which is what you would hope from a show that is based on the Motown Records’ label and the work of Natasha Katz’s lighting, Peter Hylenski’s sound and Daniel Brodie’s projections captured the glitz and glamour that the music industry is supposed to be like where gold recorded are presented aplenty all over the walls. Overall, the experience of, ‘Motown: The Musical’ was clearly a blast from the past where Berry Gordy Jr, a talented music executive and creative helped a decline in racist attitudes and developed the talents of artists like Michael Jackson to superstardom.