Tina: The Tina Turner Musical is a stage musical based on the songs and life story of Tina Turner. It’s a high energy show, that also deals with sad, emotional times. Here’s my Tina: The Tina Turner Musical theatre review.
Overview of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical is a high energy musical filled with amazing songs and also a great story. It follows the true story of the life of the famous singer, Tina Turner. The musical follows her story, from a child in Tennessee, to a global superstar. My Tina: The Tina Turner Musical theatre review will cover the plot so there will be some plot spoilers, but you can still really enjoy the show even if you know the plot.
Plot synopsis of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical
Act 1
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical starts with a brief scene of Tina Turner about to go on stage. The show then cuts back to Tina’s childhood. As a child, she was called Anna Mae. She lived in Tennessee with her parents and sister. We see that she had an unhappy childhood, with an abusive father. Her mother decides to leave, taking Anna Mae’s older sister. Anna Mae is left behind, because she’s seen as too fiery by her mother, and so she lives with her grandmother.
The show then cuts to Anna Mae being slightly older. Her grandmother encourages her to go to her mother and sister, so she can escape the country life and try to be a star. Anna Mae goes to live with her mother, and goes on a night out with her sister, Alline. On the night out, Anna Mae sings on stage. Her talent is noticed by Ike and his band, and he encourages Anna Mae to join their band. He gives her the stage name, Tina Turner.
Tina Turner and Ike’s band
Tina Turner tours with Ike and his band. They struggle with racism on the tour, from motel owners and policemen. Tina starts a relationship with Raymond, who is in the band. However, Ike becomes increasingly controlling and abusive, and gets Tina to agree to marry him. She has Raymond’s baby, but marries Ike.
Tina and Ike’s marriage is not happy – Ike is frequently drunk and brings home many other girls. But Tina stays with him, despite her manager Rhonda encouraging her to leave. Tina ends up overdosing on drugs.
Tina releases a new single, ‘Deep river mountain high’. Ike is angered that she releases a single without him. He is more abusive, and ends up abusing their son. Tina eventually decides to leave, and turns up at a motel room alone with only 36 cents.
Act 2
Act 2 is mostly focussed on following the story of Tina’s rise to fame. At first, she is performing at bars in Las Vegas. Her manager, Rhonda, is also there supporting her. But they are struggling, as Ike claimed copyright to all of their previous music in the divorce.
They try to get a record deal with Capitol Records in London. Rhonda accepts that Tina should have a new manager, and an Australian man called Roger becomes her manager and helps her to try to get a record deal. In London, Tina also meets Erwin, and the two are attracted to each other.
Despite some initial reluctance, Tina prepares to release a new single under the guidance of her new manager. However, the record company will not take it on, due to her age and race. Roger quits, and decides to go with Tina to the USA to promote her work himself. Tina performs her new song, ‘What’s love go to do with it’, and gets her record deal.
At this time, Tina’s sister tells her that their mother is dying. Tina goes to see her mother in hospital, but is upset that Ike is still there and is caring for her mother.
Tina goes back to the USA to continue her rise to fame. Erwin, her love interest from London, appears just as Tina is about to go on stage and they reconcile/The show ends with her going on stage in Brazil, in front of 180,000 people, and performing the song ‘Simply the best’.
What I liked about Tina: The Tina Turner Musical
I enjoyed watching Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. It was a good show, full of energy, and the show told her story well.
Good songs, dancing and energy
A highlight of this show for me was the music, dancing and just the energy of the performance. A comment from someone in the audience on the way out really sums up the ending of the show: “Blimey, they’ve got a lot of energy”. The whole show, but particularly the final few songs, were so high energy. It was loud, with amazing dancing, and so much soul.
The song ‘Simple the best’ was a clear highlight of the show, for me and for most of the audience. It was a great ending to the show, and an absolutely amazing performance.
The performer who played Tina Turner was amazing. Her voice was incredible, and her dancing was amazing as well. She really was a star and portrayed the character of Tina Turner perfectly.
The songs and the storyline
The songs throughout the whole show were good. This musical did a good job of including songs that felt appropriate to the storyline. It wasn’t a jukebox musical where it felt like the songs were just dropped in randomly – the songs really fitted with the story.
There were some lovely, softer songs as well as the high energy performances. I really enjoyed these more tender, heartfelt songs. One of my favourites was ‘Don’t turn around’, which is such by Tina’s Grandmother as Tina is about to leave. There was also a softer, more emotional song between Tina and Rhonda, showing how close the two had become, like sisters..
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical does jump around time frames quite a lot, but I found it clear and easy to follow. The timeline of events is clear, and it tells the story of her life well. I liked all of the characters. Obviously Tina Turner was the real highlight, but other characters were portrayed well. The Australian manager in the second half also stood out as a good performance, I liked the humour he brought to the role.
Emotional story and hardships
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical is a fun, uplifting musical overall. The ending is fun and high energy, so you leave the theatre on a high. But the show deals with some real hardship and emotion, especially in the first half. Tina Turner is abused by her father, abandoned by her mother, and then ends up in an abusive manager and turns to drugs.
The domestic violence scenes were difficult to watch. They were done well on stage, with good stage combat scenes. But it was emotional watching Tina experience so much abuse. Other scenes were emotional to watch as well, especially when Tina overdosed on drugs.
The show also deals with racism. It really shows how racism was such an embedded issue in the USA at that time. And it was hard to watch Tina and Ike’s band get turned away from the motel just because they were black, and also to see the racist abuse from the police. It was hard as well to see how Tina was denied a record deal because of her race and age.
Getting emotionally invested in the story
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical does a great job of getting the audience emotionally invested in her story. I was so pleased when Tina finally left Ike near the end of the first half of the show. I felt really emotionally invested in her story, and was desperate for her to see her self worth and leave him after he’s been abusing and cheating on her for so long. And the musical really shows how hard a decision it must have been, with the powerful scene where Tina turns up at motel with 36 cents – that’s all she has in the world. It just shows her amazing bravery to try to make it on her own.
All of these difficult scenes of hardship just made the ending, when Tina finally realises her success, even more powerful. It’s amazing that she managed to overcome so much and still be an amazingly successful singer. And she found love in the end as well. She managed to overcome domestic violence, racism, financial struggles, and bringing up children – all while making amazing music and bringing joy to the people listening to her music.
It’s great that this musical tells the story behind the artist, behind all the songs we know. Often I’m not so keen on biographical musicals, and I prefer musicals that have a fictional story. But Tina Turner’s story is so powerful, with so much genuine hardship and emotion and power. I felt like it really worked on stage, and her story deserves to be told.
What I wasn’t so sure about
My Tina: The Tina Turner Musical theatre review is really positive, so there’s not much of this show that I didn’t enjoy. I really enjoyed the musical.
I felt like there could have sometimes been a bit more set on the stage. A lot of the stage was quite empty a lot of the time. There were some props, such as a door and also clothes rails in dressing rooms. But I felt like there could have been more. But the show had lots of good lighting, and the costumes were excellent, so these helps the visual elements of the show and helped make up for there being less set.
The only other thing for me was that it was quite a long show. The performance I attended started a little late – it started a bit after 7.30pm. So it was 10.30pm when it finished. The show is excellent so I didn’t get bored, but it’s still a long show to watch. And some members of the audience started to leave towards the end – probably because they had trains to catch. So they missed the highlights of the show – they missed ‘Simple the best’ which is right at the end, and also the finale encore. It would be a shame to miss these final high-energy songs, but with such a long show, that might be inevitable for some audience members which is a shame.
Would I recommend Tina: The Tina Turner Musical
My Tina: The Tina Turner Musical theatre review is really positive, so I would definitely recommend this show. It’s fun and high energy, but also emotional with difficult scenes to watch. The show is an excellent portrayal of the story of Tina Turner’s life. And you get really emotionally invested as Tina Turner goes through hardships, so the end when she sings ‘Simple the best’ is really powerful. It’s a really good show.
Hope you enjoyed my Tina: The Tina Turner Musical theatre review! Check out my other theatre reviews for more shows in the West End, across the UK and the world.
