"Live In Living Colour" by Debut

Create Theatre, Mansfield.

The Create Theatre inside West Notts College in Mansfield was decked out like a cabaret evening on Saturday night with tables and chairs that the audience could sit round and partake of an evening of modern musical numbers from some lesser known musicals, as well as some popular musicals from the last few years.

The evening started off with the title of the show, "Live In Living Colour" from the new U.S musical "Catch Me If You Can" and featured all six performers, Gareth Wynne, Morven Harrison, James Nelson, Cat Orton, Rob Harrison and Jon Orton.

From then on there were various pairings and solo performances from them all. All six showcasing excellent voices, honed from years of musical theatre, with Jon providing information on the various musical pieces, and plugging the odd various musical theatre shows that are due in the area over the coming weeks.

I love going out and coming back more educated than I went and tonight didn't disappoint, not only from the information liberally spread by Jon, but from the musical pieces.

Most musical theatre fans will know of the wonderful pieces from the uber-talented Jason Robert-Brown and his work was featured here. A specially arranged ensemble rendition of "What It Means To Be A Friend" from his musical "13" being just one of many highlights here.

There were songs from "Book Of Mormon", "Matilda", "Newsies", "Frozen", "Shrek", "Once" and "Catch Me If You Can", all of which I knew of the musicals, if not some of the songs, as well as some musicals I hadn't heard of .

There were fun songs like "The Tennis Song" from "City Of Angels", "Guy Love" from the TV show "Scrubs" and "To Excess" from the musical "Dogfight" and "Telly" and "Smell Of rebellion" from "Matilda". Mix in some lovely ballads like "Lucy's Laugh" from Kooman & Diamond's "Out Of Our Heads" and "Falling Slowly" from "Once" and this was a musical education in waiting.

The style of the songs was spread out well between the six with Rob getting the lion's share of the comedy songs, which really suited his voice. Cat and Morven brought a real purity and clarity to their songs and James and Gareth produced some powerful notes, often not needing a microphone. I hadn't heard Jon sing before as he's probably more commonly seen in an orchestra pit as musical director, but he held his own tonight vocally as well.

Truly this was an education for me as well as an evening of unadulterated musical bliss.