Customer Reviews

Mystery of Edwin Drood / Original Cast Recording

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rupert Holmes (famous for his #1 hit "Escape") does an excellent job with his first theatrical score, the Tony-winner "Mystery Of Edwin Drood". The show, based on the unfinished book by Charles Dickens, is basically a whodunit, with multiple endings based on each audience's preferences. The cast, headed by Betty Buckley, George Rose, Cleo Laine and Howard McGillin, is terrific. The score is fast-moving & fun!

Best tracks include:

There You Are [the terrific opening number]
A Man Could Go Quite Mad
Two Kingsmen
Moonfall
The Wages Of Sin
Both Side Of A Coin
Don't Quit While You're Ahead
Finale: The Writing On The Wall

This score may not be filled with theatrical standards, but the songs are generally excellent & merit repeat listenings.

I had the priviledge of performing this musical my senior year of high school (I graduated May 2003) and I had the wonderful, yet exhausting and difficult, opportunity to play Edwin Drood. This musical is so much fun to perform and you can't keep the music out of your head- even if you wanted to. Betty Buckley is FABULOUS as is...everyone in this show. Seriously. And for girls needing an audition song, "Moonfall" is a gorgeous choice for a good soprano. Lovely lovely lovely. It's just a great show with a variety of songs that are all fun and wonderful. Love it! :o)

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, the 1996 Tony Award winning Best Musical, is the fun and frolic murder mystery where the audience chooses what character they want to be the detective in disguise, who is the killer and who gets to have a love song with who at the end. This works mainly because the mystery, writen by Charles Dickens, actually is a mystery!!! Charles Dickens died before he wrote the end of the book! Ooops! Now nobody will ever really know who the killer was or who was the person sneaking around, gathering clues.

Unfortunately on the tape, they only have the killer's & detective's confessions that were chosen on openning night of the Broadway production. BUT on the CD, they cut two songs (which kinda sucks), but you get all the confessions and you get to find out everyone's reasons for commiting the murder or becoming the detective.

George Rose won the Tony for Best Supporting Actor as the Master of Ceremonies (also found on the PIRATES OF PENZANTS recording with Linda Rondstant & Kevin Kline). The cast also includes legends Cleo Lane as Princess Puffer the Opium Den Queen & Betty Buckley (known as the really nice mom in EIGHT IS ENOUGH and Grizabella in CATS) as Edwin Drood. It's a great cast of characters.

There are some strong numbers like: the rapid tongue twister male duet "TWO SIDES OF THE COIN", the very popular female solo "MOONFALL" and the closing "THE WRITING ON THE WALL". A great duet "PERFECT STRANGERS" and group number "NO GOOD CAN COME FROM BAD" are also really fun to listen to. Granted, most of the Pricess Puffer songs bore me, but almost everything else is really jolly fun.

My idea of great musical theater is LES MISERABLES and SWEENEY TODD, so maybe I'm not really an unlifting musical kinda of guy. I like the dark stuff. But if you like happy old musical style, I think you'll really enjoy THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.

I was fortunate to have appeared in my high school's performance of Drood this year, as the Princess Puffer. It was my first show and in the beggining I was annoyed that the director had not chosen a more well known musical. However, as I read the script and listened to the music I really did fall in love with the show. It is so original and catchy that I often found myself singing it all the time. It is worth is to buy and listen to. It has become one of my all time favorites and might become one of yours.

This, sadly, has to be one of the most over-looked musicals. I have been listening to this show for years and, fortunately, I recently was in a production of DROOD at my college playing the stage manager. This is a wonderful musical (though on stage it can run as long as 3 hours) and the CD definitely does the show justice. Betty Buckley is fabulous, and [dang]! What a belt! Howard McGillin sounds great as the twisted villian, John Jasper. Cleo Laine has the perfect voice for the queen of the opium dens, Princess Puffer, and her rendition of "The Garden Path To Hell" is just heartbreaking. The most underrated character of the show [...] is Bazzard, the understudy who is perpetually waiting for his big break. His song, "Never The Luck" is one of the best written songs in the show, and can also be a wonderful moment for this character. It is such a nice moment, that the audience usually can't help but vote for Bazzard. He can steal the show. Also great on this album is Patti Cohenour who originated the role of Rosa Bud in NY and London. Her confession is my favorite. This is a great show! If you ever have the opportunity to see it on stage, go and immerse yourself in hilarious Musical Hall fun!

I recently went to our college's production of "Drood" (3 out of 4 nights) and I was amazed!!! I loved every song and couldn't get them out of my head. I was telling my grandma about the musical when to my surprise she told me that she had this CD. She let me borrow it and I have not been able to take it out of my CD player!! I highly recommend "Drood" to everyone!!!

Speaking as someone who performed in this show, having all of the various endings on one album is wonderful. Rupert Holmes creates a great satire on Victorian England, makes fun of the racism and abundance of hypocrisy that made it famous, all the while presenting sometimes beautiful and haunting, sometimes silly and energetic music. Patti Cohenour uses her beautiful soprano voice with Howard McGillin in "Moonfall" and "The Name Of Love/ Moonfall Reprise" to great effect, and her duet with a post-Cats Betty Buckley as Edwin Drood "Perfect Strangers." George Rose does wonderfully as the energetic and sometimes condescending Chairman, as does Cleo Laine as the "servicable" Princess Puffer

I absolutley love this musical!The opening song there you are is terriffic very rousing.the next number song by my all time faveourite Howard Mcgillian,very powerful in a man could go
quite mad.My 2nd fave number is two kinsmen performed by Betty Buckley & Howard Mcgillian,very up to the beat.The next number is very very errie and...I absolutley love it ,it is called moonfall.Patti Cohenour sings it beautifully and almost like a ghost.The moonfall quartet is well sung by some of my faverorite actresses including Judy Khun,Donna Murphy,Jana Schneider,and Patti Cohenour.Ok Cleo Laine is absolutley hilllarious in the wages of sin,she can make me laugh so well.Ceyleon is the next and oddest song I think.The next seven numbers I'll skip to my fave its called dont quit while your ahead it is to die for.Skip the next wonderful 5 numbers to the finale called the writing on the wall it is absolutley an amazing song.About the numbers I skipped they are terriffic also(except out on a limerick). Buy it now.

This score was described by musical theatre historian Denny Martin Flynn in his book MUSICAL! A GRAND TOUR as "insignifigant." I would just LOVE to hear him write an "insignifigant" score that's this good!

The cast performs the very fun, imaginative score as well as can be expected. Howard McGillin, who poses a very strong singing voice, sings the hell out of his confession and "A Man Could Go Quite Mad," making them among the highlights of the album. Patti Conhoeur, while she might have a mousey little voice at times, is a very strong actress, as is in evidence in her confession. And she sings her "Moonfall" quite beautifully. And the two of them together (Conhoeur and McGillin) end the first act with a bang on their "The Name of Love/Moonfall" track, which is absolutely to die for. Cleo Laine is very comical, particularly in "The Wages of Sin" and in HER confession. Her "The Garden Path to Hell" is typical of the type of music that she usually likes to sing, but is a nice poignant moment for the charicature of the Princess Puffer.

George Rose is very funning, providing the show with a strong opening in "There You Are," and he, along with the rest of the cast, make an enjoyable moment out of what is essentially an unneccesary, set-piece song, "Off to the Races." Betty Buckley, luckily the pre-SUNSET BLVD. Betty Buckley, is, as is expected, phenomenal. She and McGillin do triumphs with "Two Kinsmen," and she and Conohoeur are a delight in "Perfect Strangers." Buckley has the freakiest voice, just listen to her belting that high note at the climax of the very inspiring finale, "The Writing on the Wall." Buckley and Laine get us right back in the Mystery-mood with their Act Two-opening "Settling Up the Score."

The whole cast is great, and all the prinicple characters do great with "No Good Can Come From Bad," definitley a highlight of the album. The only problem I have with the score, show, and cast is regarding the stage manager-type character, who sings "Never the Luck" and "Out on a Lymmerick." I don't care about this character, and the way he is played doesn't help this. And his material is, at least I believe, the weakest in the show.

But all of the rest of this songfest of brilliant performers and memorable songs make for one of the best musical theatre CDs that I own.

In January of 1987, I saw Edwin Drood on Broadway and I was awestruck. The energy of the score and incredible creativity of the ending caused me to return the next day to see it again. The ending was chosen by the audience, which I thought was super cool. I recently saw Les Miserables and Phantom on Broadway. While those productions are elaborate and thier songs are flawless in light of their portrayals of the storyline they follow, I still feel the music of DROOD is incredibly uplifting and more fun. The revolving and precision timing of the staging of Les Miz and the pyrotechnics fo Phantom are the highlights of those productions. The highlight of Drood is its music and isn't that why they call them musicals anyway? Get this recording if you want that classic Broadway sound.