Awful… boring… hated it.

Friends and regular visitors will know that I am a massive supporter of the world of musical theatre, however I cannot say that I cared for this musical one bit (and neither have the critics it seems!)

NINE is a musical that oft slips through the cracks, especially in the UK where we’ve never had a ‘proper’ production of it (the closest we came was a small-scale production at the Donmar Warehouse, 1996). Many people may be surprised to hear that this musical won several Tony Awards in 1982 and 2003.

It is hard, therefore, to distinguish between musical and film adaptation – which is usually a very important distinction to make.

I disliked the plot, it all seemed very self-indulgent, none of the songs were memorable, and I had no empathy or connection with any of the characters. The musical had half of its songs cut, and thus became disjointed, hard to follow and ultimately anti-climatic I thought.

The trailer that I posted above is a second cut trailer, and I’ve posted it as it shows what I consider to be the best bits of the movie, including the best song – “Cinema Italiano”, performed here by Kate Hudson.

The real coup for this production was, of course, garnering an all-star cast and getting them all to perform together. For me, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren and Dame Judi Dench were bright rays of starlight in what I felt was an all together drab production.