Shrek the Musical was released on Blu-Ray and DVD earlier this month by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. The performance featured, is from the award winning 2010 Broadway production with 17 all new songs, based on the wonderful movie.
We’re big fans of Shrek in this house, me being the biggest – I just love Donkey! Monkey was intrigued by the DVD case, he recognised Shrek immediately. He’s turning 4 years old this week, and I wondered how he would react to a musical version.
Shrek The Musical tells the story of a swamp-dwelling ogre who goes on a life changing adventure to reclaim the deed to his land. Joined by a wise-cracking donkey, this unlikely hero fights a fearsome dragon, rescues a feisty princess and learns that real friendship and true love aren’t only found in fairy tales.
Shrek the Musical will be a hit with any fan of the films. The sets are very clever and the story remains true to the movie, being based on the book Shrek! by William Steig. The DVD comes with the bonus of seven sing along songs which we’ve enjoyed singing along too.
As the DVD runs for just over 2 hours, and Monkey is still quite small, we decided to treat our viewing as if we were sitting in the theatre ourselves and have a break in transmission. We watched half of Shrek the Musical one afternoon, had an overnight interval, and watched the rest of the DVD yesterday.
Donkey is still my favourite character, but I loved the part where we are introduced to Princess Fiona. We see her as a child, teenager and adult all in one scene. It was very cleverly done and worked brilliantly with the script. The costumes and make-up are great and all of the characters are instantly recognisable. The little Lord Farquadd, the baddie, was very well portrayed, I’m pretty sure Monkey didn’t realise how the actor had become that size.
Monkey had been making gingerbread men at Nursery School earlier in the week and was amazed to see a talking gingerbread man in the show. I think that was his highlight, as he’s still talking about it now.
If you’d like a sneak pre-view have a look at this trailer.
I think this would be a great buy this Christmas, and something for the family to enjoy together. Shrek the Musical gets a big thumbs up here and we’d recommend it.
Disclaimer: we were sent this DVD for the purpose of review, our comments however, remain our own, honest opinions
This is such a great idea. I would love to take my son to a musical but I’m not sure he would sit through it. This would be a great tester!
We’re definitely not ready for a theatre performance, but this was great to be able to watch it in 2 parts. It’s very good.
This looks like so much fun, I love musicals and it would be a fab way to introduce children to musicals.
It’s very well done, would love to go and see it myself, and yes, a great way of introducing musicals to younger children.