CANADIAN EXPLOSION
Playing at:	STAGE WEST
Plays until:	June 31, 2007
Reviewed by:	Louis B.
	FULL REVIEW
User ratings:	(3 votes, average: 2.67 out of 5)  Loading …

It’s the dynamite talent Stage West has assembled that puts some true musical fireworks in Canadian Explosion the company’s latest review show.

Ever since Stage West scored a hit five years ago with The British Invasion - its home-grown tribute to five decades of chart-topping hits from Britain - these musical journeys have become a staple at the dinner theatre.

We’ve had a second chapter of the British Invasion plus two installments of American hits called California Dreaming.

With Canadian Explosion, the spotlight has been turned on our own musical superstars and, just as brightly, on some talented young performers and fine musicians from across the country who give the songs such energetic and exhilarating renditions.

The format conceived by (writer/producer Howard Pechet), (writer/director) Timothy French, (writer/researcher) Kevin Grant and (writer/musical director) Bob Foster is a simple one.

They take some of the biggest musical hits of the past 50 years, string them together in chronological order, toss in some brief facts and then stage it all with as much pizazz as possible.

Pizazz and nostagia are in no short supply in this production thanks to French’s choreography, Ronda Borneman’s costumes and Henryk Rajner’s wigs.

Such careful thought has gone into recreating wardrobes and hairstyles of the various periods or those that helped define the artists that it immediately jogs the audience’s collective memory.

In a review show like British Invasion and Canadian Explosion, the audience often ends up applauding the songs themselves or the memories they rekindle but, just more importantly this time around, they end up enthusiastically applauding the performances.

That’s certainly the case each time Aaron Walpole takes centre stage.

Walpole, the Ontario native who placed third in season three of Canadian Idol, has charisma to match his electrifying voice whether he’s crooning the Paul Anka ballad My Way or rocking Ronnie Hawkins style with Bo Diddley.

It’s obvious Walpole is an actor as well as a singer because he knows how to sell a song as well as perform it.

The comic highlight of Canadian Explosion finds Walpole and his fellow actors morphing into The Barenaked Ladies with versions of One Week, Enid and a real shopping-stopping If I Had a Million Dollars that requires the audience to join in for additional fun.

The girls led by Paula MacNeil get to team up for a vocally exciting tribute to k.d. lang’s version of Leonard Cohen’s Halleluiah.

This was one of many times you wished the performers would do three or four more songs in that particular artist’s style.

On their own these talented women are just as exciting as when Andrea Loren gives us Susan Aklukark’s Oh Siem and MacNeill takes us way back for Gale Garnett’s We’ll Sing in the Sunshine.

It would be wrong to underestimate the contribution of Foster and his musicians Jeff Fafard, Dylan Haveron, Brad Steckel and Rob Vause.

Even if the performers can’t be absolutely true to the vocal sound of these great songs, the musicians are.

Definite highlights of Canadian Explosion include Andrew McGillivray’s tributes to Hank Snow (I’ve Been Everywhere) and Dan Hill (Sometimes When We Touch).

Adam Stevenson is a dynamo whether he’s fronting a song like Cripple Creek or just providing back up.

He does a hilarious send up of Quebec rocker Gino Vanelli with Black Cars in a set that features equally gentle mockery from Tony LePage with Corey Hart’s Sunglasses at Night.

LePage also glides effortlessly from Bobby Curtola (Fortune Teller) to Bryan Adams (The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me), the later of which he does in a clever duet with MacNeill covering Shania Twain’s That Don’t Impress Me Much.

From the moment he serves up Paul Anka’s Having My Baby, Ian Oliver makes it clear he’s aiming for parody and it works each time out.

Josee Boudreau wraps up the evening with Celine Dion’s Power of Love sending chills and thrills through the audience and making one wish she’d also been allowed to tackle My Heat Will Go On, arguably the most celebrated song by a Canadian in the past 15 years but, then again, maybe they’re saving that one for Canadian Explosion 2 which should be in the works already.