The Wellington Footlights love a cabaret style show and they always offer an entertaining night.

Due to the impending closure of Te Auaha, the new venue for this Villainous season was fortunately found at Whisky and Wood Event Centre. It is a great set up for this style of theatre as it can be designed for purpose with tables and lighting (Lucas Zaner) and the opportunity to have food and bar facilities too.

Director Laura Gardner and team have created a playful evening of entertainment and an interesting take on what makes a villain. They introduce us to the various types of villain in the musical theatre world. Given that what or who is truly villainous is often entrenched in the storyline, the question is, will they redeem themselves, perish or reign supreme?

The ensemble opens the evening with a deliciously full harmonised version of ‘Be Prepared’, with the well-known villainous character Scar, the jealous sibling from The Lion King. In contrast, Letitia Garrett sings the Witch from Into the Woods, showing the character’s more poignant and conflicted side in ‘Children will Listen’. 

There are also characters who start out with seemingly good intentions and end up the baddie, like in the delightful duet ‘Love is an open door’ from Frozen,sung by Alex Rabina and Tara Terry. Then there are those who appear charming but are actually manipulative or misguided, as seen in The Last Five Years song, ‘A Miracle Would Happen/If I Didn’t Believe in You’ performed by Alex Rabina with solid stylistic vocals.

The dictionary tells us a Villain is “a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime” or “a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot”. Villainous is “having a cruel, wicked, malicious nature or character […] that is befitting of a villain.?

While many in the opening night audience are from the Wellington musical theatre community and will likely know the majority of the songs’ backgrounds and why they are included, I do feel that there is an assumption of this fact, and a lost opportunity to thread more context; a reflective viewpoint, or even an empathetic one. I wonder if the chance to go even deeper, to make the narration something to really ponder on, rather than a light-hearted glossing over, is missed.

The show’s descriptive tagline, “If they’re really so bad… Why’s the music so good?” is so true, as so many of the ‘evil’ songs get the grit. Like Ursula, from The Little Mermaid, dripping with faux concern and care in ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’, which is perfectly dramatised by Tania Dreaver. And Tara Terry brings a delightful swag (in the Gen Z meaning of the word) to ‘The Mad Hatter’ from Wonderland (currently one of my favourite songs).

Siobhan Raisbeck brings some serious bite to the Mean Girls song ‘World Burn’ and there is much humour and excellent comic timing in Laura Gardner and Corey Moir’s ‘A Little Priest’ from Sweeney Todd.

You know it’s always going to be fun when Kirsty Huszka gets to sing and dance (choreographer Corey Moir), particularly in ‘Easy Street’ from Annie with Corey and Tara, and also in the only song I didn’t know – the comic ‘It’s Tough to be a God’ from The Road to El Dorado,with Letitia. Some great pizazz!

The band (Nathan Parker, Rob Edgecombe, Jacob Hemsley, Josh Cooper) with musical direction by Saar Cohen-Ronen, excellently supports the contrasting musical accompaniment needs.

The combination of high volume levels, and the percentage of big vocal numbers, give less chance for a moment of reflection or to take a breath. It is evident that the singers have strong voices (confirmed when a mic failed), so consideration to augment projection into the room rather than pushing the amplification would have enhanced the overall experience.

The cast excel with the lush soaring harmonies in the ensemble numbers. The songs with choreography are slick and punchy. All the performers have the opportunity to take centre stage. 

There are times when the excitement of the evilness gets away on the vocal output. Caution does still need to be taken that the range or stylistic requirements of the song are vocally suitable for the singer.

What makes cabaret-style shows extra fun for the singers and the audience, is to make them even more personalised. Performing songs out of the original show context, there is far more scope to stylise them to fit the specific voices more comfortably with the interpretation or key changes. 

The finale of Villainous is a medley, arranged (I believe) by Michael Stebbings, which cleverly includes a nod to ‘Candy Store’ from Heathers, and Javert’s ‘Stars’ from Les Misérables gets a mention along with the Wizard of Oz from Wicked and Trunchball from Matilda.

The classic villain character story line is based on good vs bad or right vs wrong, especially when teaching the moral high-ground to our kids through fairy stories. But there is, as in life, much grey in many of the characters’ journies with how they came to be at this juncture of making the villainous choice … Or are they really just villainous!?

Food for thought as I travel home after an entertaining evening.

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