LAT's Kampung Boy: The Musical Rubbish

Before I begin, let me just say this;

“To Michael Bay, I apologize for the harsh criticism I wrote about you in my first entry post. I never thought there will be someone else out there who can be more lunatic than yourself. I was wrong to judge you so soon and I hope that your future films will have more explosions and less plot”. Sincerely – Amirul –

Now, let me start the ball rolling to my second ever blog entry. To all my fans (Amirul & Feisal, I am referring to you fine gentlemen), I apologize for not keeping my words when I wrote that I will not post any more blogs, but I could not hold my frustration on the event which I witnessed last night.

I am referring to the musical titled LAT’s Kampung Boy. For those of you who do not know the background of the story, it is either you are not from Malaysia or if you are from Malaysia then you are just bloody ignorant, whereby you ignorance should be highly recognized (Seriously, I was shocked when I learnt that there are many people in KL who have no idea what Kampung Boy, or even LAT is).

Now for those of you who know the story of Kampung Boy, well Istana Budaya is currently playing host to a musical adaptation of the beloved comic. Good idea you think? Well that’s what I thought......... until I experienced the first 5 minutes of the show.

I don’t catch many live musical to be honest, but I do know what makes a musical good, bad, or horrible. Kampung Boy : The Musical was borderline horrible and excruciating. Why you might ask (if there is anyone who is actually asking), well for starters, the show’s title should just be called LAT: THE HORRIBLE MUSICAL OF HOW I BECAME A CARTOONIST AND GOT HITCH. Catch my drift?

First of all, the story Kampung Boy ends after half an hour. That’s just it; the rest two and a half hour is about him all grown up. They should change the title (please read above).

Secondly, the musical timing was utterly excruciating. The music element of any musical is to deliver messages and of course the main essence of any musical, however the timing and the delivery the show's main artistic value was in non-existence (to the directors of the show, please oh please do not produce any more musicals until you understand how the timing works). The concept of timing is of course a very subjective thing. Everyone have their own preference and creative feeling about it, but that should not be an excuse for sucking. What was worse was that, I could not even understand the lyrics as the enunciation terrible. I could not understand what they are trying to sing nor could I understand why are they singing it since the story has already being told before each song was played (feels like watching a Hindustan film).

There was one scene which deserves a more significant condemnation, it was the scene where the protagonist and his wife fought straight after the wife gave birth. It’s ridiculous that the wife could stand let alone argue shortly after giving birth and the shrieking sound of the wife’s voice was veyry much unbearable (and I was seating way behind).

As you musicals fans may know, the music is where the story is told, the narrative part should just be the complementary elements of the show and not the other way around. In this musical, most of the storytelling was done in normal act and furthermore, these normal acting scenes was so repetitive (including the script) that it is irrelevant to the entire show.

I could go on and on about writing why the musical is bad, but I do not have the time and the show does not deserve any of my time (Since it has already taken three hours of my life), so to cut it short, in summary, the show was like getting your tooth extracted without having any anaesthesia. To quote a fellow audience, it was like getting slap on the penis.

Of course I may be wrong, the directors may actually plan the musical to be presented in this manner but should that be the case, they should charge RM1 for the ticket and make it refundable!!!