I have quite an admission to make. I have just spent the evening gorging on the first 8 episodes of Fox’s surprising ratings winner, Glee. I first read about the American musical comedy series on Ken Davenport’s blog, Producer’s Perspective, where he highlighted how good for Broadway the series was. Ken felt it was a great way of getting Broadway stars working in a high profile project as well as bringing musical numbers into line with pop songs and onto TV.

It would appear that the launch and marketing behind this musical theatre bonanza could not have been better primed. The pilot episode was premiered straight after an episode of American Idol in May, capturing a ready made audience of tweens, lovers of all things camp and those who appreciate a tight dance routine – the perfect musical theatre audience.

Glee, based on the American high school tradition of show choirs, is a musical comedy which has some how managed to make its way onto prime time American TV. Musical theatre on TV is of course something we are seeing more and more of across the pond. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long form adverts for West End shows such as ‘How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria’ and ‘I’d Do Anything’ have certainly brought belting to the British mainstream but ITV’s Britannia High, the teen musical sitcom set in a fictitious London drama school, interspersing set piece musical numbers with atrociously constructed whiffs of plot, was quietly swept under the rug after its first series failed to attract audiences or critical acclaim. A little bit of Wikipedia research revealed that after it was exported to Australia it only survived one episode before being abandoned.

Glee is not exactly much better. The entire thing feels like Saved By The Bell with musical numbers thrown in for good measure. The level of cliche in the stereotyped characters is simply incredible with every group we have been taught to expect in an American high school setting being unapologetically represented from the beginning. The jocks, cheerleaders and geeks are all present and accounted for and the predictability with which they interact and conflict is as formulaic as trigonometry textbook. The strength of Glee however, is that it realises as much.

I found myself laughing out loud at some of the more biting slices of satire delivered in the early episodes, mainly by Jane Lynch who plays the ball breaking cheer leading coach who will stop at nothing to foil the glee club’s fun. The constant references made to her past military career, questionable femininity and complete disdain for all living creatures poke fun at every gym teacher you’ve ever seen in a 90s high school romcom.

The real reason that Glee works is that it follows the rules of the Musical. Big numbers are built up to with the star studded Broadway cast knowing that they have to justify their singing, making the songs happen instead of just continuing to piece the dialogue together. I’ll admit that some of the plot development could make Friends look nothing less than Shakespearian but when the musical numbers come they are carried off so well that you can almost forgive what has gone before.

The producers behind Glee also seem to be making some really interesting marketing moves, showing that they understand the audience that they are playing to and how to make money from them. After every episode the cover tracks from the show are available on iTunes for download. There have already been two different CD volumes released with music from the current season and every so often a Broadway megastar trots on for a cameo and, of course, to sing a couple of numbers. The fourth episode of the season centres around a guest appearance from Kristin Chenoweth who gets solos, duets and chorus backed numbers to show off her ability with both showtunes and pop belters. The episodes blend show tunes, the traditional repertoire of glee club choirs, with covers and mash ups of contemporary pop songs and pull all off convincingly. The voices which supposedly come out of the performers mouths’ sometimes come over as slightly over cooked from the pre-recorded mix, in relation to the performances being delivered, but its pretty obvious that singers and large backing casts are slightly distracted pulling off the impressive choreography.

Following a successful run in the States, Glee is set to hit screens in the UK on December 15, gracing the airwaves courtesy of E4. Watching the series this evening I was trying to place where in the UK television offering Glee would best fit. Britannia High showed that even something so blatantly ripping off the High School Musical format, and following immediately on its heals, did not necessarily have the ability to print money or attract automatic success. Hopefully E4, which has shown in the past that it can market big American imports such as Desperate House Wives and shows for an ambiguous young(er) audience such as Skins, will be able to make a success of Glee which does not fall easily into traditional television genres.

Britannia High was cancelled having pulled in viewing figures floating around the 2m viewer mark with peaks of just over 4m for the early episodes in its prime time Saturday night ITV slot. I was slightly reassured that youth centric shows such as Skins on E4 are expected to pull in figures nearer the 800,000 mark on a Thursday. Hopefully Glee will manage to attract audiences of that kind of size with its Tuesday debut and actually make a go of it with a British audience. God knows it’ll be good to see some singing and dancing on TV that doesn’t involve Eurovision, Simon Cowell or reality casting.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has demonstrated that there is an appetite for musical theatre on British TV. Britannia High showed that there was little tolerance for those musicals being poorly executed. Hopefully Glee will make a successful jump across the pond. In spite of being almost painfully predictable, it is knowingly satirical, comically biting and when all is said and done, its cast full of talent and genuinely well done.

Photo credit: WatchWithKritstin on Flickr

Related posts:

1. Musical Theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe 2010?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 2:44 am and is filed under Actors, American Theatre, Broadway, News, Professional Performers, Television, Youth Engagement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.