The Blues Brothers Approved Review
The Blues Brothers… Approved
Opera House, Manchester
7-11 May 2013
Reviewed by Colin Rogers & Emma Baker
The Blues Brothers… Approved was at the Opera House in Manchester so it was a 20 minute drive from where we live. We parked in the NCP car park which was only a 10 minute walk from the Opera House.
We got to the venue and collected our tickets from the box office, which is easy to find. The member of staff informed us that the show didn’t start for another 45 minutes, and the auditorium didn’t open for at least 15 minutes, but showed us to the bar where we could wait. While there we thought we may as well have a little tipple to help pass the time. We got served straight away, and the prices were reasonable for the venue, glasses weren't allowed in the auditorium so even though we were given 'proper' glasses we were told that should we wish to take them to our seats we could go ask and ask for plastic glasses.
While we waited we had a look through the official program, which was jam packed with information on the show and the cast, it even had a list of the song we had to look forward to which got us excited for the show, just in time for us to be called to our seats ready for the show!
The consisted of two halves each a good 45 minutes long, and featured around 30 songs from the original series like…
– Everybody needs somebody to love,
– Shake it like a tail feather and
– Jail house rock.
The show itself was different to what I expected, as I thought it was going to be a show but it was full of singing and dancing with some slap stick comedy thrown in. The Blues Brothers were full of energy dancing about and played their part fantastically, Jake (played by Brad Henshaw) could be seen jumping and dancing about the stage and even tried his hand at cartwheeling! and his brother Elwood (played by Chris Chandler) provided a bit more of a serious side to the show but still had us in fits of laughter. The music from the band was out of this world and each instrument complimented the other perfectly from the trumpet and sax to the guitar and keyboard. All these together along with the beautiful vocals from the Bluettes, we knew were in for a treat. The lightening and smoke machines were in time which the music setting the mood to each song… excellent.
At the end of the first act we got to a 20 minute interval to get some refreshments and use the toilets which were closely located to each entrance of the theatre.
As act 2 started you could feel the audience still buzzing from the first half and wondering what was coming next. We didn’t have to wait long to find out as they soon got us all to join in, we had no excuse not to join in as they split us up into groups to show up the moves and the words to the songs! The theatre was in uproar of laughter and we all tried to outdo each other.
We were all stood up dancing and singing away, there wasn’t a bum on a chair anywhere to be seen!
As the show was coming to an end the atmosphere was fantastic and no one wanted it to end, so you can imagine the excitement when they all came on for an encore.
It was a great show, full of energy and beautiful soulful songs and they put their own stamp on each and every song they sang, me and my other half couldn’t wait to tell our friends and family what we had just seen.
Definitely a show we would be back to see, and recommend to anyone and everyone and something we will be talking about for a long time.
In the words of Jake and Elwood… I need you… you… you… I need you.. you …. you!!
A huge thumbs up.
Rating: 5/5 
To buy tickets for The Blues Brothers at the Opera House, Manchester click here.
