Friday 4 March 2016

REFRESHED ‘THE BEATLES LOVE’


“Love” blasts off with a new spring in its step just like the makeover Merseyside city they put on the global map. The acrobatic dancers even have springs embedded in the new spongy floor to propel them faster and higher as they belt into a raucous “Twist and Shout.”
There’s a new, vibrant look and exciting feel to the show that celebrates its 10th anniversary in July.
The changes, began with a decision two years ago to transform The Beatles show top to bottom.
Last Thursday, after a two-week shutdown and months of daily rehearsals while the show was running by night, the cast presented its new look to the public for the first time.

Seventy percent of the show is different — and marvelous and magnificent. The remaining 30 percent will be updated and integrated between now and when Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison arrive in July for the 10th anniversary.
The show feels as if it’s catapulted at high speed into its second decade of Strip success. Each of the 2,013 seats has had its three old speakers replaced with two more modern, smaller ones that give it a bolder, bigger and brasher sound.
Giles and his father Gerorge remixed 80 minutes of The Beatles music for the original Cirque show in 2006.
Since then, Giles has backed up the Beatles catalog and last year remixed their No. 1 hits digitally. He was perfect to replace all the audio in “Love.” The Beatles’ legacy of genius in their music and lyrics is intact forever. He now describes it as “glorious sounds.”
The Beatles provided new, previously never seen video from their vaults at Apple Music to director Dominic Champagne, who has miraculously created animated, interactive holograms of The Beatles in black-and-white silhouette.
Enjoy the experience as an open-mouthed, gee-whiz moment, the aerial ballet that featured four girls and one guy “flying” and “swooping” to “Something in the Way She Moves.”The couple on the trapeze for Paul’s “Yesterday” video are magically interlocked. The ballet for “Here Comes the Sun” is an emotional spine-tingler.The high-above staging of “The Octopus Garden” is adorable, and sparklers descending from the ceiling of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” seem as large as Caesars Palace headliner Mariah Carey’s engagement ring.
One minute, the show can go from eye-popping psychedelic colors to the purity of a white chiffon tent draped over the entire the audience. The dancing seems to have picked up a harder and faster beat.
The dancer on roller skates moving and grooving to “Help” has to be seen to be believed. The trampoline skater performers for “Revolution” seem to speed faster, jump higher and somersault farther.
All of the added effects and action plays out on the computerized floor, which becomes a giant screen for 24 projectors — so lifelike at one point it looks as if it’s a glistening lake.
Not only does it change colors, but the sections of colored squares also go “splat” into various shapes with the tap-dancing and jumping dancers as they land. It’s modern showbiz technology at its finest — an interactive gym floor.
The show, with its cast of 65 international performers, ends on a high point of the marching Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band in new, vivid and colorful uniforms and performers walking on stilts sculpted from their musical instruments. It’s whimsical fun and very effective visually.
There’s so much going on, one has to return at least five times to capture it all. It’s a wondrous and emotional experience that lasts for days.

“The Beatles Love” plays at the Mirage twice nightly — at 7 and 9:30 — Thursdays through Mondays, dark Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

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