If you’re in Madrid and enjoy musical theaters, I recommend you to go and see Tina Turner, the musical. The show is written by Katori Hall, winner of an Olivier Award, and directed by Phyllida Lloyd, whereby Tina herself is a co-producer. The musical will take place until the 10th of July, 2022. You can find more information and tickets here.
Who is Tina?
Tina Turner was born into a sharecropping family and started singing as a teenager. While growing up, Tina would often go to nightclubs. One night, she meets Ike Turner at a performance by his band, the Kings of Rhythm, and soon she became a featured vocalist with them. The band didn’t get a lot of success until A Fool in Love hit the pop charts. Ike and Tina later get married but Tina divorces Ike years later, due to physical abuse and infidelity. After the split, Turner decides to start a solo career, but she realizes that it’s not an easy start.
The musical shows how Tina was able to overcome all prejudices in terms of gender, race, and age and how she became one of the biggest stars in the history of music.
My thoughts about the musical theater:
The musical was absolutely outstanding, especially the choreography. I was a bit skeptical at first, thinking that the show was going to be boring but it was mindblowing. The singing, dancing, scenery, and the timing, were absolutely fantastic. The actress who played Tina sounded almost like the real singer and there were moments when I thought to myself that she’s the real singer! What I mostly really liked was that Tina was persistent in becoming a singer. She overcame many obstacles on her way just to get where she wanted today and that, in my opinion, is very inspiring.
So for those who are musical theater lovers, if you wish to enjoy a really good musical, I urge you to attend this one!
What songs did they play in the musical?
Some examples of the music they performed were What’s Love Got to Do With It, Proud Mary, Private Dancer, River Deep – Mountain High, We Don’t Need Another Hero, Simply The Best, and many more.
To end this article, I have included five interesting facts about Tina Turner.
DID YOU KNOW?
- Turner has held a Guinness World Record for the largest paid audience (180,000 in 1988) for a solo performer. She has also sold more concert tickets than any other female performer in history.
- Tina is also an actress and has acted in some movies like Tommy (1975), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and Last Action Hero (1993).
- Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler wrote Private Dancer with the plan to record it himself, but Tina said his version sounded “very butch! Like something you’d hear in a pub, after too many pints”. The song became the title track of her 1984 hit album, bringing with it an upwards lift in her career.
- She has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- Tina Turner’s real name is Anna Mae Bullock.
