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For 60 or so years the sinking of the RMS Titanic stood as a horrifying story of maritime disaster that also served as a cautionary parable of man’s hubris in believing it was possible to build a genuinely unsinkable passenger ship.
Then, in 1997, the filmmaker James Cameron turned it into THE GREATEST LOVE STORY OF ALL TIME, in no small part helped by Celine Dion’s chart-devouring enormo smash ‘My Heart Will Go On’. Of course it remains a tragedy in which 1,500 people died, but it is a tragedy now forever associated with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet having it off in a steamy motorcar, plus Celine’s magnificent if somewhat thematically counterintuitive ballad of overcoming adversity.
A sad story, but now also a very camp one, which brings us on to ‘Titanique’. An off-Broadway hit that long sailed on to Broadway itself, the musical – by Tye Blue, Marla Mindelle and Constantine Rousouli – is a parody of ‘Titanic’ (the film) that retells the story from the crucial perspective of Celine Dion, who hijacks a museum tour about the sinking and claims to have herself survived the disaster and had firsthand knowledge of what really went down with Jack and Rose.
The mix of earnest power ballads and cabaret-style parody has been a tremendous hit and now ‘Titanique’ is attempting its own Transatlantic crossing: it’ll be opening at the West End’s Criterion Theatre in December, with a press night after Christmas. Will London have New York’s appetite for this veritable giant iceberg of kitsch? We’ll find out soon enough.
‘Titanique’ is at the Criterion Theatre, from Dec 9. Sign up for priority ticket information here.
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