GORDON BARR went to Paris to see Disney Live! Mickey’s Music Festival. He interviewed Toy Story’s Woody and Jessie characters ahead of their current visit to Newcastle.
TAKE your favourite Disney tunes, mix in a little contemporary pop and add to it all your favourite animated characters and what do you get?
Disney Live! Mickey’s Music Festival, of course, and the all-singing, all dancing music mash-up of mega proportions which is now delighting audiences at the Metro Radio Arena.
I had the chance to see the show in Paris and can reveal a fun time is guaranteed for all – young and old.
Picture toddlers and young at heart on their feet and giving it their all – a tiny tots mosh pit in fact – and you get an idea of the reaction to this new Disney show.
Mickey Mouse and his band of friends, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy, are at the Arena, along with a host of your favourite Disney characters.
You get to hear greatest hits from the blockbuster movies Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Toy Story remixed to rock, pop, reggae, hip-hop, jazz and country, among other jams.
I met up with James Ward, who plays Toy Story’s Woody, after the show in Paris, and commented on his skills with a lasso and skipping ropes. “It was a skill I never thought I would have and now it is a skill I feel very confident in,” he smiles.
“It’s a skill Disney Live! has helped me perfect over months and months of practise.
“Theatre is always going to be giving you your problems, that is one of the wonders of working with a live prop on stage. Recently me and my Jessie were ‘jump-roping’ and it got caught on my holster and we had no idea what was going on, so we continued to jump even though the ropes were no longer twirling.
“I feel we recovered really well as it looked like we were having fun. That is the wonder of being a toy on stage every day as we get to have fun as we get to break those rules and barriers out there.” Produced by Feld Entertainment, Mickey’s Music Festival, features an all-star line-up of more than 25 Disney characters and begins with audiences watching a state-of-the-art video projection of the frenzy backstage which spills on to the stage as Mickey welcomes guests to his concert tour.
Soon after, they are transported to a new world of hip hop beats, dizzying acrobatics, flying carpets and magical transformations with Aladdin, Jasmine and Genie.
Underwater is where the crowd meets up with Ariel, Sebastian and their nautical pals to groove to the reggae rhythm.