Singapore - A BYGONE golden age of Malay cinema in Singapore was revived last weekend on the Esplanade stage in P. Ramlee The Musical, about the legendary actor, singer, composer, scriptwriter and film director of the 1950s and 1960s.
Tracing his origins as a talented Penang songster and his rise at Shaw Brothers` Malay Film Productions, this is a full-scale production with all the bells and whistles, high-tech stage set including a street scene of Penang, a steam train and Lido cinema.
A solid cast was led by Musly Ramlee as P. Ramlee and Liza Hanim as his third wife, Saloma. The score by Dick Lee is pleasantly pop, but it was the inclusion of Ramlee pieces such as Senandung Kasih which got the audience cheering.
Initially, the musical focuses on P. Ramlee`s celebrity – sighing groupies, newspaper articles flashed on screen and even a troupe of dancing reporters – and how this destroyed his first two marriages.
However, those unfamiliar with Malay cinema will not really get a sense of why he became so popular, as the only examples given of his work are a brief scene of him playing a rejected lover and a couple more of him singing (not very helpful, given that this is a musical and thus everyone sings well). Fortunately, this changes in the second half of the musical with the funny and sweet portrayal of his courtship of Saloma.
Musly finally gets his chance to display the charm that must have drawn legions of fans to P. Ramlee, winning himself – and the memory of the legend – a standing ovation at the end of the night.
Source: www.star-ecentral.com – Stephanie Yap (22 Mei 2008)
