The Blue Man Group at Universal.–

Combine music, mime, comedy and performance art with a little bit of audience participation shake it up and let it cook for an hour and a bit and what have you got ? Well the answer is The Blue Man Group Show at Universal City walk.

Performing daily at the newly refurbished and specially adapted Theatre, The Blue Man Group is quite unlike most shows you will see in the Orlando area.

The Theatre is actually the former home of Nickelodeon until it closed in 2005 .The new theatre contains just over 1000 seats, and there are five "zones," Zones 1-4, and the "Poncho" zone. The poncho zone, which is made up of the first four rows, has particular meaning. To sit here you are provided with a poncho to protect your clothing as things fly from the stage into the audience although when we went no one got really covered with anything

The show centres around three performers supported by a small group of very good musicians. These guys entertain and amuse for an hour and a half without saying a word yet managing to convey everything they need to the audience by using music and fantastic facial expressions.

They are dressed all in black and the name comes from the fact they have latex over their heads and faces which is coloured blue - meaning only their eyes are really visible. These they use them to convey all sorts of emotions including curiosity, surprise and wonder as well as contempt and disbelief.

The music comes from a weird and wonderful set of instruments that are made from piping –one they play is called the “drumbone “ a combination of a drum and trombone which takes all three men to play to the more common drums which also help to convey their thoughts and feelings some of which may be lost on younger children so I would suggest 7’s and over may get the most out of the show.

Parts of the show are in darkness and they use lasers and flashing moving lights, so if you have people in your group that are a bit wary they may need reassurance but there is nothing frightening in the show at any point - unless of course you are adamantly against audience participation in any form in which case be aware they do select audience members to take part in sketches. They pre-select a couple to be slightly ridiculed but it is not in a nasty way and all adds to the comedy feeling of the show. One thing you cannot get out of though is the participation towards the end, which involves rather a lot of paper although I won’t tell you exactly what it is –you will have to see the show.

By Jan Smith
(September 2007 web-site http://www.Jansfloridavilla.co.uk )