A show celebrating Hollywood’s Golden Age is set to begin a five-day run at Wilton’s Music Hall in Whitechapel.
Hooray for Hollywood stars singer and comedienne Liza Pulman and pianist and singer Joe Stilgoe.
The show takes audiences on a musical journey through Hollywood classics from The Wizard of Oz to La La Land.
It’s designed to appeal to audiences from across the generations.
Pulman said: “We’re finding grandmas are coming and saying ‘I love this film so much it reminds me of my youth’ but equally grandchildren are coming and saying ‘my mum used to play this to me in the car on the way to school.’
“It’s music that has been passed down through the generations and lives on.”
Pulman believes the show’s appeal comes at a time when audiences are increasingly drawn to nostalgia and more traditional forms of entertainment
She said: “There’s a real gravitational pull towards nostalgia at the moment.
“We are reaching for those more tangible things, we’re reaching for vinyl, we’re going back to reading books and coming off our Kindles.
“We’re definitely trying to spend less time on our phones, less time in front of computer screens. I think that there really is a pull back to the warmth of this material.”
She described musical theatre as a form of escapism, in a world “where you can’t even entirely trust what you see when you look at your phone.”
The show has earned positive reviews from critics, receiving four out of five stars from both West End Best Friend and Spy in the Stalls.
Pulman and Stilgoe are also doing a one-night-only Christmas show called Hooray for Holly, at The Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, on 14 December.
It puts a Christmas twist on Hooray for Hollywood, featuring songs from Elf to The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Stilgoe said if he could be in any musical film he would choose White Christmas, saying: “It’s not that seasonal for 11 months of the year but for that one month it’s the greatest film ever.”
Hooray for Hollywood will run at Wilton’s Music Hall, Whitechapel, from 3-7 November.
Featured image credit: Matt Crockett
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