Theatre Review: Finding Nemo on Ice

A couple of weeks ago, Tamara and I went to see Finding Nemo on Ice at the Homebush Sydney Olympic Centre. It was my first time in Homebush – and we got there easily with the help of my GPS (although it struggled to locate the Acer Arena in it’s databrain – I had to find what road the stadium was in and then look from there).

If there was any hint of broodiness in my system, it was forcibly evicted by the 5-million-plus under eight year olds streaming into the arena. The hall was packed with stalls selling everything from finding nemo hats ($22) to the ridiculously priced Nemo stuffed toy ($44) and of course the ubiquitous flashing Nemo thingymabob ($30). I could just imagine the cries of “Mommny, please can I have a Nemo hat” or “Daddy, I simply won’t be able to live unless I have a Nemo flashing toy”. Well, it looks like the whines worked, ‘cause the arena was spotted generously with Nemo-hatted kids and ones sporting the light-up fish.

The show started and so did the camera flashes. I have never been to a live production that allowed photography from the audience.. We almost got evicted out of Priscilla last week when a mate of mine produced a camera. But here, it says clearly on the website that cameras are allowed (unbelievable!). And so my head was blipped with camera flashes coming from all over the room at 5-second intervals – you would think that we were at a world famous rock star concert, not a kid’s show about locating a clown fish.

The highlight of the show was probably the costumes – very elaborate. The skating was pretty basic, except for one number where there was some lovely partner lifts. I think the voice-overs were form the original movie so no surprises there.

So all in all, it was a fun romp with the fish but I’ll probably think twice before booking for a kids-only show again.