The London Games Festival is the parent organization behind events including BAFTA’s British Academy Game Awards, EGX Rezzed, and the ongoing Festival Fringe. Taking place through April 10th at venues all around London, the festivities aim to promote the games and interactive entertainment sectors. Amongst the tournaments, interactive performances and marketplace is one particularly note-worthy show for fans of Nintendo and video game music.
‘Mario! A Super Musical’ is the creation of writer and director James Burrows. A total subversion of Mario’s traditional tropes, Burrows came up with the idea of pairing the series with a musical stage performance while playing through the games.
“I realized that the stupid little songs I sang I as I played Mario games could actually be strung into a fun little narrative,” he says. But it’s not the typical Bowser/Peach damsel setup. In Burrows’ version Bowser finally nabs Mario, leaving Peach and Luigi to become the crooning heroes who venture through Nintendo history to save the day.
Unlike the crude or one-off “Mario Musicals” you can find on YouTube, ‘Mario! A Super Musical’is a full production with 20 songs all based on remixes of classic Nintendo tunes that set and tie the story together. There’s a duet between Mario and Luigi based on the Mario theme, a “Tetris Bowser” villain song and even a Les Miserables-style “One Day More” number to the tune of Gusty Garden Galaxy. Burrows promises plenty of cameos, surprise romances and a ridiculous amount of terrible puns as well.
The performance stars a cast of U.K. based drama students who received standing ovations at the first two showings in Nottingham. The venue for their Saturday show as part of the London Games Festival Fringe is the Stratford Circus theatre. Tickets are still available for those readers nearby and if you do get to attend, let us know what you thought!
