Review: Take a musical trip with A BOARDING LINE at the Masque

In such dark times for the theatre industry around the world, it truly felt like coming home when the Masque invited us to have some musical fun. A BOARDING LINE is full to bursting with great tunes from Broadway musicals, threaded together to form a new narrative. Everything about the production felt like a celebration - something we probably all need right now.

The scene is immediately set - we are at ALW Airport and the journey we are going to take is all about the pilots, the stewards and a few lost passengers, oh and some very sassy security guards. You meet Captain Jo Samuels (played by Regina Malan), who is the first female pilot for the airline, the roguish and not-well-liked-by-his-peers co-pilot, Billy Kodali (played by Dudonne Diergaardt) and there's Julie (played by Caldine Wyngaard), the shy checkout girl in need of some help to find her voice - just to name a few who stood out to me.

Each character has their own storyline that intersects quite nicely with the others. However, it did feel like some of the overall story was more about finding a way to fit in a song than giving characters time to grow. There were moments that only has a couple of lines of dialogue happening between two big musical numbers. This felt a bit overwhelming because the audience didn't get much time to breathe between songs at times.

That being said, the comedy in the script was great and the actors hit their punchlines with glee. I particularly enjoyed Rob Shenton's Wicked reference and Tamith Hattingh's appearance towards the end of the production.

The set design was clever and it was exciting to see things getting wheeled onto the stage and off again fairly smoothly. It's not easy to make the Masque stage look so big and so fluid, especially with a cast of 21 people added into the mix. I also appreciated the clever lighting design and a good use of the follow spot.

All in all, it was a fun night out and I couldn't have been happier to see the Masque Theatre reopen with such a fun production. The audience all left with smiles on their faces (not that you could see them because we were all wearing our masks and I'm happy to report that safety protocols were all very much in place). It's great to see talented performers belting out big hits and clearly having fun while doing it.

Photo credit: Allegra Whitehouse

A BOARDING LINE runs until 19 June at the Masque Theatre, Muizenberg. Tickets are R110 and can be purchased from Computicket. Performances are at 8pm during the week and 2:30pm and 7:30pm on Saturday.